Marry that Chick
by Nadie2
Summary: What if Daniel followed Vala to the Ori galaxy? First of all, when she finds out she's pregnant he will really have to, as Cam said, "Marry that Chick". This story follows them as their marriage becomes more and more real.
1. Chapter 1

_Hello! I know I haven't posted a story in a bit. I have recently been diagnosed with Undifferentiated Connective Tissue Disorder Not Otherwise Specified. My joint pain is better, but I still sleep pretty much all of the time I'm not at work. Sigh. So no promises on how often the updates will come._

-The Choice-

"Hey, where are you going?" Daniel asks, skipping down the hall after Vala.

"It's not like anyone was listening to me," she says, walking just as deliberately.

"Well, I'm listening now."

She smiles, "I'm going to get into a cargo ship, and use it to complete the circuit."

"What cargo ship?" he interrupts, screwing his face up.

"The clocked one that the Jaffa left behind to watch us," she explains.

"The cargo ship will never be able to survive that kind of power," he tells her.

"I'm counting on it. It should short out the system," she says, turning down the hallway.

"And kill you," he says, with the exaggerated roll of his eyes that he saves just for her.

"I'm going to ring out before that," she says.

"I'm not letting you do that alone," he says.

"Daniel, it's a one-person job, there is no reason for both of us to risk our lives," she says stepping into the rings.

"This is what it's like to be a member of a team," Daniel tells her, as he steps onto the rings next to her. She presses the button, and they find themselves on a cargo ship.

He doesn't know much about technology, and he knows even less about alien technology, so he doesn't try to help. Time is short, and he's fully aware that his helping could just as easily be hindering. He just stands back and watches her work. A lithe little space pirate pushing buttons.

She senses his eyes on her, and protrudes her butt to give him a better view.

He focuses his eyes on the planet below.

She focuses hers on the buttons before her. "Stand on the rings, darling. I'm almost done."

His finger hovers over the button. She runs toward him. He grabs her by the waste and pulls her the last few centimeters before hitting the button with all that he has in him.

-Another man's wife-

Tomin's mother had always told him not to walk after dark. There was nothing there but mischief, she used to say. But he was only walking. He needed the exercise, and it was too embarrassing for him to walk in the daylight when other people were looking at him. He was cursed by the gods. He limped.

There was the sound of rings activating. Something that only happened during religious ceremonies.

He walks toward the rings to investigate.

Two figures are laying on the rings. There is a man with is arm wrapped around the waist of a woman. They are wearing matching clothing. The woman was not wearing a dress, but the clothes of men. She had her hair in pigtails, as if she were a child, but she was all woman.

He kneels before her, ignoring her husband on the other side. "Ma'am," he says softly. There is no reaction. He cups her shoulder. She still doesn't react. He shakes the shoulder with a bit more vigor. Then his heart beings thumping in panic, he feels for the pulse at her neck. As soon as the pulse reaches his fingers, he pulls away in bashfulness.

She's alive, and spending more time outside on a night like this won't be good for her, so he scoops her up by the knees and back, and carries her gently toward his house, limp by limp. Her head falls against his chest.

This might be the closest he ever gets to a woman, and it's another man's wife.

-Dreams-

They are both having dreams.

His are a lot more pleasant. He's remembering his wife. The way it felt to be married, and wake up with a woman snuggled against him every morning. The way she put her hand over his every time he ground the flour wrong to show him the right way (even though she knew he did it wrong on purpose). The way her eyes smiled at him, even when her mouth was too lazy. He was remembering the way she trembled whenever he kissed her neck.

She was dreaming of a fire face above the bed, lowering down onto her.

She wakes with a start, and feels something tickling her neck.

She swats what she thinks is a bug, but finds a much more human head behind it.

"What the hell?" a voice asks, and she realizes in a flash that it is Daniel's.

"I'm sorry…I didn't realize it was you," she stammers.

He's rubbing his nose, and sitting up. He doesn't seem to know quite where he is, which is frankly a relief, because she has no idea where she is either.

"What did you do?" he asks.

"Well, I felt something on my neck, and I hit it. Wait? What were you doing nuzzling my neck anyway?"

"I don't know, how did you get me into bed?" he asks enraged.

"Get _you_ into bed?" she retorts.

Tomin comes into the room, drawn by the bickering. He's one of those people who is terrified of any type of interpersonal conflict.

"You're awake?" he asks softly, holding up a tray of tea.

Vala and Daniel stare at him, suddenly remembering their last minutes, jumping in a ring transporter.

"Where are we?" Daniel asks softly.

"You are in my home. I found you on the ring transporter, and brought you here to recover," Tomin offers.

"Recover from what?" Vala asks, hoping that whatever comes next will explain her wave of dizziness and nausea that she's felt ever since she woke up several minutes ago.

"Your journey from the gods," he explains with a faint smile.

"Thank you," Vala says with a smile, taking the tea.

Daniel can't understand how she not be flabbergasted at his words.

"I hope you don't mind that I took your husband and yourself to my house. I didn't want you to lay out on the rings all night on a day when it is a cold as this," he explains, somewhat bashfully.

Rings, Daniel thinks, okay, that makes a whole lot more sense. Then the second part of the first sentence bursts upon his mind, "Wait, we're not married," he says.

Vala doesn't support or refute his claim, but just casts him her widest most mischievous grin.

"When I found you were touching the woman, so I just assumed…" Tomin stammers.

"T… t… touching her?" Daniel has horrified. It's not terribly surprising to him that might have done something like that though. After all, Vala is a beautiful woman, and it has been a really long time for him. He woke up kissing her neck, so what surprise was there that he'd done something else… before he'd woken up. A person couldn't be blamed for something that they did in their sleep could they?

"You had your hand over her waist," Tomin explains with a blush, when he realizes that his words have been misunderstood.

"Oh, well that's because we're teammates. We work together. I had to pull her into the transmitter at last minute, and… well, were else do you grab a woman without grabbing at something you shouldn't touch?" he asks, causing a snort from Vala and a blush from Tomin.

"I ought not to have put you in the same bed. I'm very sorry. I will tell nothing of this so that no one will assume her purity has been compromised. It has not, has it?" Tomin asks Vala directly.

Vala opens her mouth, but Daniel, terrified of what might come out of it, jumps in, "No, we haven't done anything to compromise her purity."

"I'd offer you another place to sleep, but I don't have any other beds in the house. It's just me, after all, and I don't often have guests," Tomin apologizes.

Daniel stands up, saying, "That's alright. You can show me to another room and I'll sleep on the floor," but his feet give way underneath him.

He's traveled on the rings dozens of times without any side effects, so this is his first clue that they must have gone a lot farther than he thought they had. The supergate was open. They must be in the Ori galaxy. Tomin's clothes seemed to confirm this. It was going to be a long way home then.

Tomin rushes over to help him up. Vala leans over the side of bed to see if he's okay. She doesn't set foot on the ground to help him though, figuring that if his legs won't support him, hers would not either.

Tomin lifts him up by his armpits, and drags him unceremoniously out of the room.

"See you later, Daniel," Vala says, waving from the large bed, and earning herself a glare.

-The Morning After-

After a short nap, Daniel finds himself able to walk, at least by holding onto things. His mind is working much faster than his legs as he walks like a toddler around Tomin's kitchen. He's in the Ori galaxy. How do you get back from the Ori galaxy? The supergate is shut down, and as far as he knows that is the only way back. He could be part of some plan to get a supergate open, but that would be doming his entire galaxy.

He's not that selfish.

He might just have to spend the rest of his life in some tiny village in the Ori galaxy trying to blend in, and pretending that he knows a lot more about Origin that he really does.

"Well, you always wanted to get back to fieldwork," he tells himself.

"Daniel," he hears a quick hiss, and turns to Vala, "I'm in a nightgown. Did you put me in a nightgown?"

"No, you were like that already when I woke up for the first time," he tells her.

"Well, that makes another man who's undressed me when I was unconscious," she says with a roll of her eyes.

"You would have thought he'd be too bashful for that, the way he blushes," Daniel whispers, looking nervously outside at the shed where the man had retreated.

"I think we're in the Ori galaxy," Vala informs him.

"I've put that together, too."

"So what are we going to do about it? How are we going to get home?" she asks.

He squints at her for a long second, surprised by the fact that she thinks of Earth as home. Surprised even more, perhaps, that she is capable of thinking of any place at all of home. "I don't think we can."

"Really? You're a member of SG-1, and you're going to give up on getting home that easily?" she asks.

"Vala, if we find a way out of this galaxy, that would be finding the Ori a way into ours. We already put an entire galaxy at risk when we used the communicators to discover the Ori for the first time. I'm not really willing to do that all again."

She sighs, "So we're just supposed to live out the rest of our lives among these people?"

There is real terror behind her eyes, and he doesn't forget for a minute how things ended here the last time, "I know it must be scary to be around a religion that burned you to death the last time you were here. I don't think you are in any danger, though. We weren't in our own bodies last time, so I don't think there is much of a chance of them recognizing you."

"I'm not worried about them killing me. I'm worried about being bored!" she exclaims with a roll of her eyes.

He sighs, "Well, we've got to come up with a plan, because we are no doubt going to be here for a while, if not forever. So we've got to find someone who is willing to take us in. I don't think that both of us can stay with Tomin for long. Then we've got to find something to do so that we're not just a burden on them. We've also got to learn more about Origin."

"On that last one, I think you mean 'me' by 'we', since you're already and expert on it."

"I'm an expert by Earth standards, I doubt that I know as much about it as people who grew up with it."

"Do you really expect me to have a job? I've never had a proper job before," Vala whines.

He smiles, "Doesn't 'space pirate' count as a profession?"

She pulls herself up the counter, and the motion makes her breasts for a moment protrude toward Daniel in a way that he can't help but notice. "I don't think that's exactly the sort of thing that gets you onto the better business bureau on this fair planet."

"Probably not," he admits.

"What about you? I doubt they have a lot of archeologists in a place where people are forbidden to learn about their own past."

"When I lived on Abydos, I learned some skills. I can make flour, and grow crops, and I'm actually pretty good at whittling."

"Wait, when did you live on a planet as primitive as Abydos?" she asks in shock.

He takes a deep breath and stares past her. This was something that he thought he should share with Vala for a while, because it explained most of why he'd never say yes to her. It was also something he'd dreaded sharing with her. You don't want to be venerable with someone who isn't used to being serious. "I lived there with my wife."

"You're married? You should go home once in a while, Daniel. You spend so much time at the base that your wife must never see you," she teases.

"Sha're died. Years ago. And before that, she was host to a Goua'ld. She hasn't been my wife for eight years, that's a lot longer than we had together."

"Oh," Vala says, staring at the ground. It's hard to be around someone who is vulnerable when you're used to telling jokes.

Tomin enters the room, and Vala jumps off the counter.

"What do you eat for breakfast in your village?" he asks them.

"Anything is fine," Daniel tells him, having no idea what the right answer is.


	2. Chapter 2

-Big News-

It really wasn't pleasant to lose your lunch in the Ori galaxy. Not that it was really pleasant to lose your lunch anywhere. But here, it was particularly nasty. The only method of relieving themselves that these people had was a shallow outhouse shared by half the street. If you threw up, everyone who used the bathroom for the next couple of days would know about it.

This meant that the gossiping about her started before she was even really sure herself. She caught an old woman gossiping about whether the father of that "harlot's bastard" was "the strange man who she came with" or the "cripple who took her in." The woman's gossiping companion was pretty sure it was Tomin since Daniel had been taken in by another family not long after they arrived.

Vala couldn't even be a full month along, yet. Still, if the gossip was already being nosed abroad she'd better do something about it fast.

So she knocks on the door of the house of the family that took Daniel in. The woman of the house opens the door in the middle of a laugh which seems to have its cause in some story Daniel is telling the three children around his knee.

"Hi," she manages with a smile to the woman. She's hoping that the worry doesn't get into her eyes, and fuel the gossip any farther. "Can I take a walk with you?" she asks Daniel.

"Yeah," he says, not missing the worry in her voice, although it seems to have slipped under the radar of the woman. He puts down the knitting (which he assures her is a very manly craft in the Ori galaxy) and follows her out the door.

"You should have asked me to come repair something around your house," he warns her as soon as they are out of earshot behind a closed door.

"You don't know how most of the things in this galaxy work," she objects.

"Well, they don't know that. Besides, they would believe that Tomin isn't able to do it, because of his limp. The way you asked me will make them think that we are courting."

"That might not be a bad thing," she says.

"Vala!" he exclaims in fury, "You do not get it! This is not some joke. Haha, I'm flirting with Daniel. If they see us dating, they are going to expect a marriage."

A tear slips out of Vala's eye. It's just the hormones, she assures herself.

Daniel softens, "Look, I'm sorry. I just think it's really important that you follow the rules of this society. We can't have a repeat of the last time you're in the Ori galaxy."

"Trust me, I realize that I could very easily be burnt at the stake," she tells him.

"No, I overreacted. They won't expect too much from you asking me to walk one time. Even here, couples sometimes go on dates where things don't work out. You just can't make a habit of asking to talk to me this way."

Vala does a quick glance around to make sure that there is no-one close enough to overhear. Then she switches to Goa'uld, which is a language designed not to be translatable by any technology for good measure, "I'm pregnant."

Daniel stops dead in his tracks. Daniel's face quickly turns red from the effort of trying to keep words inside. The words don't last long inside of them though, and when they come out they come out like a ragging rapid, "I cannot believe you were that stupid! You were burned at the stake! You were murdered! Just for saying a word that had to do with sex! To actually do it! In this place! How stupid could you be?! You're just going to find whoever the father is, and make him marry you. I'll help you make him."

"I can't do that," she whispers.

"This is your life we are talking about! I don't care if he isn't your favorite person in the whole wide world. This is your only chance at life. If he was good enough to sleep with, he's good enough to marry!"

"You don't understand. I don't know who the father is," she continues softly.

His face turns red with rage again, and he rolls his eyes almost aggressively. "How many options are there? You know what, I don't even want to hear the answer to that question. Just pick the one of them that is mostly likely to marry you, and get on with convincing him he's the only choice."

"There are no options," she says with a flinch.

He stares at her, asking for an explanation without a single word.

"I've never had sex with anyone in this entire galaxy."

Daniel seems to be pondering as he begins to walk again. "Did you know you were pregnant before we left Earth?" he asks her softly. Without much judgment, which comes as something of surprise to her.

"I've never had sex with anyone from Earth, either," she says. He gives her the look that she's deemed his 'suspicious face'. "I'm serious, Daniel; it's been a good seven months since I've done anything more than kiss a man."

He examines her eyes for a long moment, using what he's found to be a fool proof lie detecting test that he once picked up among a group of tribal Africans. "So there is really no way that you know of that you could have gotten pregnant?" he asks softly.

She shakes her head.

"And you're sure you really are pregnant?" he asks.

She laughs, "Do you really think I would be coming to you about this if I wasn't sure?" she asks.

"No, you're right, it just… doesn't make much sense."

"I know," she says, breathing out a little sigh of relief. Now that Daniel believes her, she's sure that everything is going to be alright.

"We'll get married then," he says, staring down until his hair covers his eyes. His hair has already grown longer in the almost month that they've been here. She wonders if anyone has offered to cut it for him.

Vala's imagined him saying that to her, but not in this desperate need-to-be-saved kind of way. "You don't sound terribly excited about it."

"What do you expect? I'm still scared this is all going to blow up in our faces," he says.

"I could find someone else to do it. Maybe Tomin," she says.

"It's safer for you if it's me. I know about your pregnancy. We will also have plenty of time to talk about how to escape."

"Right," she mutters. "So I guess I have a wedding to plan."

"Small, inconspicuous and quick, please," he says quickly, "I'd better look into getting us somewhere to live. I don't know how they do loans on this planet, but I hope they have something, because I have very little savings."

"Right, well, I'd love to help you out with that, but on this planet woman are not allowed to have jobs," she says.

He nods his head, and starts to walk away. He turns back at the last moment, and says, "Just to be clear, it's not a real marriage."

She waits until he's walked out of earshot before he mutters, "Somehow, they never are with me, darling."

-Wedding Day-

"Don't open the door!" his voice urges from the other side of the door.

"Why not?" Vala asks, her stomach flopping at the sound of her betrothed on the other side. It's not a real wedding, she reminds himself. There is no reason for butterflies to be dancing in her stomach.

"It's bad luck for a husband to see his wife in the wedding dress," Daniel explains.

"Only on Earth," Vala says, opening the door. Daniel was leaning against it, and he falls practically into Vala's lap.

He stares at her dress with a mixture of delight and distraction for a while before he talks. "I thought we should talk."

"Are you backing out, Daniel?" Vala asks, straightening her dress suddenly, and causing him another long second of distraction.

"No, I just felt like you needed some facts before we did this. I have no clue how to take care of a baby."

She smiles, "Neither do I. Neither does anyone, really; parenting is all about figuring that stuff out."

He nods.

"I wasn't even sure you'd be doing a lot of the child care," Vala continues.

"Oh, when I'm in this, I'm going to be all in this. We'll be partners in everything."

Her heart warms inside of her, "Until we get back to Earth."

"Right, after that you won't need me."

"Nope, I won't," she says.

"But until then," he smiles awkwardly.

"Tell you what. If you take me as I am, I'll take you as you are," she says, extending her hand.

He smiles, and then he grows awkward again, "Do they kiss during the marriage here?"

"Yeah."

"Well, should be practice or something? We don't want everyone to see that we've never kissed each other before," he says, fidgeting.

"You're not supposed to kiss each other before the wedding here," Vala says.

"Right, then, we'll be fine," Daniel says, trying to walk backward outside of the room.

Vala takes a few steps forward and captures the man in a stomach-twisting kiss. Vala pulls away, and Daniel looks completely stunned for a long minute. "Maybe we should tone it down a bit for the actual wedding."

"Maybe," Vala says with a grin.

-The Wedding Night-

"I'm going to warn you that the house is pretty bad. I'm going to work on it, and I'll have it up to snuff before the baby comes," Daniel says with apology as he opens up the door for her.

"Hopefully we won't still be here when the baby comes," Vala says. She turns toward Daniel's silence, and sees clearly that he thinks this is probably their new forever home.

She takes a deep breath, and immediately regrets the action. The smell of a house that hasn't been cleaned in a long time meets her nose.

"Sorry," Daniel says, "It's really not as bad as you think it is." Beyond the door is a small kitchen, including an oven thick with grease. Four hard wooden chairs sit around the table. Two slightly softer covered ones sit in the corners of the room. A spiral staircase leads straight up.

Vala's eyes follow the stairs doing a quick mathematical calculation. Whatever is at the top of the stairs can only be big enough for one queen sized bed, and a bit of walking room on either side. "Which one of us gets the bedroom?"

"Well, I'm certainly not going to take a bed away from a pregnant woman. On the other hand I'm also not willing to sleep on those chairs for the next couple of months. So I say both of us."

"Both of us?" Vala says with her eyebrows raised, "But it's not a real wedding?"

"We're professionals. We've slept next to each other on tents during a mission before."

"Right, it will be fine," Vala assures him.

"Right, so… your nightgown is up there. I'll give you a little time to get into it, and I'll just… change down here."

"You don't even want to undress me? At least Tomin did that, and we weren't even married."

"Legally married, but nothing else," he reminds her just once more. With Vala, frequent reminding never hurts.


	3. Chapter 3

-Night time -

She made it easy for him. When he comes upstairs, after far more time than you would expect it to take for someone to get dressed, she's on the far side of the bed, turned toward the wall.

He climbs into the other side of the bed, thinking that she might already be asleep.

"Did I take the wrong side?" she asks softly.

"It's fine."

"What side of the bed did your wife sleep on?" she asks.

"We didn't have beds on Abydos," he says.

"You still had sides," she points out.

"I don't know, we mostly slept a little tangled together," he says awkwardly.

There is a long pause, "Do you have enough blankets?" she asks.

"I'm good," he mutters, turning toward the other wall and regulating his breathing so it sounds like he is asleep.

She tries to slow her breath down to meet his. In the silence of the night, their breath mingles together in a way which warms both of their souls. Not that they would be willing to admit that to anyone.

-Snuggly-

He wakes up to find himself wrapped around Vala. She fits, even better than his wife ever did. It's like every dent in him was made for a curve in her, and vice versa, but one of her dents still unfulfilled. He allows himself one slow inhale of her sent before he moves over onto his side of the bed.

She pretends to wake up then. She's been awake for a quarter of an hour. Too scared to move and shatter the security that being in his arms has afforded her. She needed to feel safe right now.

"Ah… sorry," he mutters.

"No problem, we were asleep," she lies.

"I'd say we should get another bed, but it's not like there is room. Especially when we get a cradle up here," he says, looking around the small room, "I hope you feel safe with me."

The first honest words of the morning slip from her mouth, "Always with you, Danyel.

She wants to light a fire, and make him breakfast, but the sight of the greasy stove makes her run outside to lose her dinner from last night. When she comes back, he's scrubbing.

"You don't have to do that," she tells him.

"We may be on a planet that separates all tasks into men's and women's tasks, but I don't. Why don't you go upstairs until I finish this? Morning sickness has got to be awful."

"It really is," she says.

"But you get to feel a baby growing inside of your body," he says.

"Not really yet. I think right now all that is happening is a tiny bundle of cells is hijacking my blood stream to use it for its own."

"Can I?" he asks, looking at her stomach.

"There won't be anything to feel for a while yet," she says, slightly offended.

"Right," he says, turning and starting to scrub.

She grabs his hand, and places it on top of her stomach. He grins. Then he sighs. "I should have told you before. Sha're and I… we tried to have a kid for almost a year."

"You don't think you can have kids?" she asks him.

"I think this one might be as close as I ever get."

Her bottom lip quivers, "I'm going to have it call you 'Daddy', even after we get back to Earth. I'll make sure… you have something to do with the kid even then."

"Thanks," he says, grinning, with his hand still on her stomach.

"Should we clean together?" she asks, grabbing a rag and soaking it in the water basin.

"Right, yeah," he says, glad for a distraction from his emotions. He grabs another rag, and begins to scrub the stove with vigor.

-It's just biology-

Sleeping as two tangled together into one became the norm. They stopped blushing at it. They stopped pretending it wasn't going to happen again. It just was.

The problem with all of this was that there were no cold showers (or any showers) in the village. Also, there was not a private place to… ahem… take care of yourself. So day after day, the tension of sleeping with parts so close to a beautiful person began to wear on them.

One day, they were both lying on separate sides of the bed when suddenly Daniel rolls over. "Ok, so sex is a basic biological need, right?"

"I've been trying to explain that to you ever since we met," Vala says, rolling toward him again.

"You've got hormones. You're pregnant. You need this even more than the average person," he continues.

"Well, excuse me, when exactly is the last time that you've had sex? I think we both need it pretty badly," she defends.

"Ok, point taken. What I was trying to say is, it doesn't have to mean anything? Right? I mean, we can just have sex, and be friends who raise a baby, and that's it, right? That's all it has to be."

"Right," Vala nods, trying to hide the aching in her heart.

"If you don't want this… if it's over the line," he says insecurely, while reaching out and touching the side of her face.

"I wasn't exactly looking forward to a life of celibacy. I mean, if we weren't doing it, and this is certainly not a place to have an affair, so… if we don't get out, it would mean never again."

"I really hadn't thought of that," he says.

"Until we got to Earth," she adds.

"Right," he says. Even though they both know that that is never going to happen.

"Is it ok if we kiss?" he asks.

She nods her head. He leans forward - an inch away from her lips - a centimeter. They touch, and it's like a handshake. The handshake becomes a dance. Soon, the tongues enter the waltz as well.

She pulls away, breathless, "My God, Dr. Jackson, you are good with the tongue."

"Well, you know I am a linguist," he says, blushing. "Do you want to go another round with the kissing first, or are you ready to start letting me shed your clothes?"

"Daniel, we decided to have sex. You don't have to ask me about every little thing."

"I believe in affirmative consent. That means I think I do have to ask you about every little thing."

"I'm not that fragile, Danyel."

"I had a feminist as an advisor for one of my degrees. This is so not about you."

"It kind of takes the magic out of it, doesn't it?"

"Dirty talk," he says, with a raised eyebrow.

"Mother, may I," she retorts.

"Oh, we'll see about that," he says. He places his hand between her legs, not quite touching, but close enough that her skin can feel him anyway.

She waits.

"Do you want anything?" he asks with the calm of a waiter trying to take an order.

"For God's sake, touch me!" she exclaims.

He complies in a way that makes her toe curl.

"Mother, may I?" he asks with eyebrow raised.

"Bragger," she manages to grunt out, although she's almost beyond talking.

"The other nice thing about this is you get to order me around. If I like what you say, I do it. If I don't like what you say, I don't," he says with a grin on his face.

"Put your lips where your thumb is," she rasps.

"I thought you'd never ask," he says, quickly disappearing below her nightgown.

-It's just biology Part II-

Exhausted and immobile, they lay apart from one another in the bed. There is no way that they are going to touch. You can convince yourself that the person you're sleeping with doesn't mean anything to you. It's a little harder to do that with someone you sleep with, and then spend the whole night cuddling.

"Are you ok?" he asks softly.

"Yeah," she mutters. She just had the best sex of her life. Of course she's fine. Only… Daniel is so far away right now. Like, half a bed away. How silly for two adults to be curled up in a ¼ of a bed each, with half of it stretching empty between them, when a few seconds ago they were doing all of that.

He knows it's a lie. He even knows what's wrong with her. He spent a lot of time thinking about what it would be like if he got Sha're back from the Goa'uld, and Vala was with a Goa'uld for more years than his wife was. He almost asks her about her time with the Goa'uld. Almost tries to get her to share about the trauma. But he knows she won't right now. Right now, those questions are only going to make her angry. So instead he gets clever, "You know, if we're strictly concerned about biology, there is something else we should consider."

"What's that?" she asks.

"When you have sex, this chemical in your brain is released that makes you want to cuddle."

"Yeah?" she asks.

He nods his head, holding his arm out, and she slides over and enters into its protection. A deep sigh comes out of her as she closes her eyes. He kisses her forehead, right by the hairline, and he forgets to ask her permission. For the first time, Vala allows herself to pretend that this is a real marriage. It's risky to do that, but all the good things in life are risky.

-Confessions-

During the day Vala alternates between scrubbing a house that badly needs to be cleaned, and making blankets and whatnot to make the house more comfortable. Daniel mostly works on the carpentry that is his business. Sometimes, though, he knits something for the house, because he's better at it than her.

The long and short of it is, they spend most of their days sitting in uncomfortable chairs, working and talking to one another.

There are no TV shows and few local events or weather changes to talk about, so it isn't long until they start to talk about the past. She tells him about her father, and step-mother, and the man she killed when she was twelve and he tried to rape her. She doesn't even try to turn it into a joke. She tells him about how he threw up, and how she cried. And how she almost didn't run away. How she thought about staying put until the police of her world came to put her to death.

She tells him about her time as a Goa'uld and how powerless she felt when her body would not obey her commands. She tells him about how she is still woken up by nightmares that it is all going to happen again, that these nightmares come a lot more often than she would like to admit.

He tells her about her parents, and how they died. He tells about foster family after foster family, and mostly about the feeling that he didn't belong. He talks about when he joined the Stargate program, and about how it was the first time that he ever felt like he belonged anywhere.

"I would love to feel like I belonged," she whispers.

"You're part of the Stargate program now," he tells her.

"Not really. Not officially," she protests.

"Well, we'll fix that when we get back."

They both keep pretending that they are going to find a way back, even though both of them have stopped doing anything about it. They both play as if their marriage is not real, but on some level, they are both aware that that is a lie.


	4. Chapter 4

-Danger-

It's market day. The one day a week when Daniel isn't hanging around the house. It's a day that Vala really doesn't want to hang around the house, either. So she does what she always does on market day, she heads to the local bar to talk with the bar tender.

"You're getting big," the local prostitute says with a smile, looking at Vala's belly.

"Yeah, and I feel it," she says, heaving herself onto a stool.

"Your husband must be pretty excited," the woman says, sitting next to her.

"Yeah," she says, looking down. She has always felt weird about referring to Daniel as her husband. She married him so that everyone would think that he was, but it still feels like more than a bit of a lie.

"Vala, I want to ask you a question. I mean, I've heard lots of rumors, but I didn't dare ask before. This kid is Daniel's, right?"

Vala shifts on her seat, "Of course it is. He's my husband."

"Right, but… you're kind of big for how long you've been married."

"Well, it was one hell of a wedding night. Besides, I'm a better cook than Tomin was, so not all of this plumpness is baby," she says.

The other woman laughs a bit, than Seevis comes up behind them, and announces, "She is unholy. She conspires with those who would lead you from the Path of Origin," as he grabs her.

"Let go of me!" Vala insists.

-The Rescue-

Daniel's stomach sinks as he sees a crowd around the altar. At least this town doesn't seem to be very big on burning people, they just let them sit out and die of exposure. Which, when you think about it, is an even crueler way to die.

Then he sees who is in the circle.

"Vala!" he exclaims, running toward her at full speed.

"Hush, no-one is supposed to help me," she mutters.

He unlocks her, and carries her to the bedroom without a word. She hears him moving furniture in front of the door downstairs, and she'd love to tell him that it isn't going to matter if they sent the whole army here to get her.

He comes upstairs with a face of a warrior and the face of a lover all in one, and the water bucket. He gives her a long sip of water before he asks his first question, "How long were you out there?"

"A couple of hours," he says.

He gives her another sip of water as payment for the next question, "Is the baby still with us?"

"I felt it move about an hour ago," she says, knowing that it is as close to an answer as she can give him right now.

"Keep me posted," he requests, giving her another sip.

"I assume Seevis did this?" he asks.

She nods.

"You're not leaving this house for a long time. I'm going to make you something to eat."

She grabs his hand, "I'm okay, Danyel."

"He had no right to do this to you. And no right to do this to our baby."

Sometimes, Vala worries that he forgets this baby has nothing to do with him, not really. She worries that his longing for a child, some leftover of his first marriage, the real one, has made him forget that no good can come of this child. That its origin is mysterious, and dangerous, and bad.

She forgets that, too, and she doesn't have an excuse like him.

The baby responds to her heartbeat, and kicks. "Daniel, baby's fine," she says with a hand over her stomach.

He nods his head like it's a business transaction, and walks out of the room.

-Plan-

She wakes up to see him holding her hand. They've never done that before. It's kind of hard to make up a reason that you biologically need to hold someone's hand.

He pulls it away the second that he realizes she's awake, even though she smiles at him, trying to get him to continue.

"I found out some news today," he says softly.

"Is it good news or bad news?" she asks.

"I have no idea, to be honest. They're building ships, Vala. They must have a supergate open."

"That means we might be able to go home," she says full of hope.

"It also means that they might find a way to get into our galaxy," Daniel points out with a scowl. "I joined the army today. If there is a way out, I'm going to take it, even if a way out also means a way in for them."

Vala looks devastated, and Daniel struggles to figure out why. "Right, of course you should go."

"I thought you would be happy about this," he says.

Tears start to stream down her face, "Really? I get that I'm not really a member of your team. I get that I'm not really from Earth. I just didn't think that that would mean that you would drop me like a hot potato," she stands up to leave the room, although the action doesn't make much sense. There isn't a whole lot of house to flee too, even if she actually felt good enough to flee.

"Vala! For goodness sake! You're coming with me! Soldiers are allowed to take their wives. There is no way I would even consider it if you and the baby couldn't come!"

She dissolves into tears in his arms.

"It's okay, Vala, we're going home, soon. You're okay."

She falls asleep a while later, wrapped in the strong arms of the only man she's ever trusted.

-Visitor-

"Open the door!" the sound comes from outside. It's Seevis' voice.

"Hell no!" Daniel finds himself wishing for a gun or a zat, but all he has is a knife. He wonders when he became a soldier. A decade ago, he never would have thought of defending himself with a weapon. Then again, he wasn't just defending himself. He was defending people who meant a whole lot more to himself than he did.

"I'm not going to hurt her!" Seevis says.

"And why exactly would I believe that? You tried to murder her today."

"The intention was not to harm her."

"Well, you had to know it wasn't good to leave a pregnant woman out in the sun with no food or drink for… how long did you mean to do it, anyway?" Daniel says with fury.

Seevis pushes the door open, and Daniel is shocked to see that the man was alone. He'd figured that Seevis would be bringing the whole army along for this one. Seevis closes the door tight behind him before saying, "I'm part of the resistance."

Daniel blinks at him.

"We had to test her, to see if the two of you could be trusted."

"Why didn't you test me?" he asks through clenched teeth.

"We did test you, through her."

Daniel glares at the man before him, "We have a plan to sabotage the ships."

Daniel can't help but let his heart sink. He knows that it's a good thing. It might just keep all the people of Earth from dying horrible deaths. But it also means that he and Vala aren't going to be getting home anytime soon. He doesn't really want to raise children on this planet.

"Do you need help?" Daniel asks, putting the knife down slowly.

"Yeah, and I think I can help you too. We've got some artifacts, and Vala mentioned you used to work with artifacts."

"Why the hell would she tell that to you? Was she trying to get me killed?" Daniel asks.

Seevis laughs, "Oh, it wasn't me she told."

"Denya," Daniel says slowly, nodding his head.

Seevis nods.

"Daniel?" Vala's voice says at the top of the stairs.

"I'm down here. You feel up to some company?" he calls up.

"Who?" Vala asks.

"Just the leader of the underground on this planet," Daniel says.

-Communication-

"I'm not going to let you use the communicator," Daniel tells Vala a few days later. Today they are lighting up the ships. Hundreds of people are going to die. They figure this would be enough of a distraction they could use the communication devices without being noticed. At least they hoped.

"It only makes sense. You are better with these weapons," she says holding up the staff weapon.

"Says the former Goa'uld host! I may have checked out on a staff weapon back at the SGC, but I'd much rather have you watching my back, than me watching yours."

"Ok," she says, taking it.

For nearly an hour after that, she watches the man that she has come to love as well as respect and admire sit bolt upright and completely unresponsive. It scares her more than she'd like to admit. But they have to know. The people of Earth have to be ready when they come through the gate.

Suddenly Tomin walks through the room, and shoots the communication device. Vala doesn't hesitate, but releases a shot on each of the intruders.

Tomin dead. She's killed him, and she wants to throw up all over again, just like the first time that she made a kill.

Daniel doesn't say a word, but he wraps his arms gently around her.


	5. Chapter 5

-Delivery-

It's only a second after they go through the Supergate that she feels the first labor pain. It isn't subtle, either. There are no early warning signs, no long protruded labor.

This kid's in a rush.

The midwives try to come in, but she pleads with Daniel to send them away. She's scared of what might come out of her, and if it is some partially human thing, she doesn't want anyone to know about it but him.

Well, if she's being honest with herself, she doesn't want him to know about it either, but she isn't exactly sure how she could prevent that.

They leave with reluctance, like warriors deserting the post.

Within an hour, their baby enters the world. She looks normal. She's a daughter. Vala was really hoping for a daughter. She was so feminine herself that she wouldn't know what to do with a boy. Besides, her husband wasn't exactly the most masculine.

"She's beautiful," Daniel says, smiling down at the baby in Vala's arms.

"Well, she takes after her mother," Vala says flippantly.

-We've got a problem-

He should wake her up. He should have done that twenty minutes ago when he first noticed the problem. But then, he didn't have any evidence. He just thought the kid was a little bigger, and it could have still been his mind playing tricks on him. Vala had just given birth, in record time, and was completely exhausted.

Now he was sure. He'd measured the baby so that he could scientifically prove her abnormally fast growth, but even if he hadn't measured the kid, he would have known it for sure. She was toddling about the room, and looked like she was a year old.

Now his only reason he didn't want to wake up Vala was because he didn't want to break her heart.

"You haven't spoken yet. Is your mind keeping up with your body, little one?" he asks. He's tried talking to her almost constantly in the nearly hour she'd been alive.

"Yes, I am within," she says, blinking at him.

"Well, hello there. I'm Daniel," he says, squatting before her, and pushing up his glasses.

"You are the one who loves my mother," the girl says.

Daniel suddenly hopes the kid isn't speaking physically, and that she wasn't conscious for all their late night lovemaking sessions. "I'm your Daddy, too," he says with a smile.

"Not really, though," she says, tripping over her own feet in the attempt to learn to walk.

"Well, honey, I'd like to be your father," he says with a smile. It's something that he'd wanted to be told his entire childhood, but it's not getting the reaction from the kid that he wanted it to.

"My father is the Ori," she says.

He raises his eyebrows, "What does that mean, exactly?"

"I am the Orici," she explains.

"Nice to meet you, Orici," Daniel says, extending his hand.

"It is not a name. It's a title," she says.

"I see, what is your name?" he asks.

"I haven't been assigned one yet. I understand that it is the parent's duty to do that. However, my parent is still sleeping. Does she do anything but sleep?"

"Having a baby is hard work," he says.

"It's my fault?" the girl asks, with her eyebrows furrowing in confusion.

"Oh, I didn't mean that, honey," he says softly.

"I'll make her better," she says, pulling herself into the standing position, and walking over to her mother. Even over the course of this short conversation, she's gained the ability to walk easily.

She puts her hand on her mother's stomach, and a light comes out of it.

"Hi, who are you?" Vala asks, waking up and looking at the girl before her.

"That's your daughter," Daniel tells her.

"Ah, no, my daughter is a newborn baby," Vala, says looking around the room for the cooing baby that she expects.

Daniel offers her a sad little smile, "I watched her grow up."

"I healed you!" the girl says, with obvious satisfaction.

"I do feel much better, thank you," Vala says, pulling the girl up on the bed next to her. "What is happening?"

The question is addressed to Daniel, but it is the little girl who answers it. "I'm the Orici. The Ori put me inside of you. They made it so that I would grow very quickly as soon as I came into this galaxy."

"Why?" Vala asks very quickly.

"So I can lead the army," the child says.

Vala gives a panicked look to Daniel over the girl's head, but the girl doesn't miss it.

"We are going to convert this galaxy to the true religion of Origin," she explains.

"Well, I can tell you right now that not everyone in this galaxy is going to go for that," Vala tells the girl.

"Then they will be eliminated."

"That's not the way we deal with people," Vala says in the voice that any mother might use to admonish her toddler.

"I know that you are an unbeliever, mother. But I will teach you the true path."

"I have a better plan. You can come and live with us, and be safe and happy. That so much better than taking over the whole galaxy, isn't it?" Daniel asks with a wide smile on his face.

"I know that you wanted me to be a baby, but this is so much better," she says smiling.

"You can't kill people," Daniel says.

The girl tilts his head at him, confused, "Of course I can."

"He means you shouldn't," Vala explains.

"Why?" the girl asks.

"It's wrong," Vala says.

"It is wrong not to believe in the Orici," the girl says.

"We're not getting anywhere repeating ourselves," Daniel says, sitting on the bed almost playfully. "I think we should name our little girl."

"Right," Vala says, but her smile is too full of pain to be mistaken for the genuine article.

"Do you have a preference?" Daniel asks.

The girl shakes her head.

"I'd like to name you after my mother, Adria," Vala says.

"Ok, but it won't change anything. It's time for me to go to the others now."

"No, why?" Vala asks.

"It is silly to wear your dress. It is still far too long for me. They will give me the clothes that they have been preparing."

"Stay. Forget about your intergalactic destiny, and just stay," Vala pleads.

"I will see you soon, Mother," she says as she walks out of the room.

Daniel reaches to try to stop her, but she uses an arm to harness an invisible force to push Daniel against the wall. Vala starts to get up, and help him, but he waves her off with a wave of the hand, and stands up.

There is a long second of horror as the two look through the door that the girl disappeared through. Daniel breaks the silence, "We have to go now."

"I'm not leaving her," Vala says with fieriness that only a mother could manage.

"We could go home," he says.

"She's my baby," Vala says.

"I realize that. But she's obviously not going to go with us willingly, and I'm not sure that I could make her. Even if we could get her back to the SGC, there is no telling what kind of havoc she could wreak on the place! How could we contain something like that?"

"What about the havoc she could wreak on the galaxy?" Vala sobs. "I'm responsible for all of that. I gave birth to her!"

"Whatever she does is not your fault. You didn't choice to have her."

"I did, though, Daniel. I could have ended the pregnancy, and saved the world."

"What makes you think it would be that simple? I doubt the Ori would let you do that," he says.

"It doesn't matter. I didn't even try," Vala says, trying to hold back tears.

"Of course not, you loved her. You wanted her. So did I," Daniel says, moving forward to hold her.

"You know, I never thought I'd agree with my father, but now I'm starting to remember about how he used to go on about 'you nurture them, and then you raise them, and you teach them the best that you can, and then all they do is break your hearts'. I always assumed that his experience was just tainted by me."

"I'm so sorry, Vala," he whispers in his ear. The words have such sincerity in them, beyond empathy, that Vala knows he feels what she feels.

"You're right. We've got to ring out of here."

"You sure?" he asks, pulling away so he can look at her face.

She nods.

"Ok, let's do it quick then," he says, grabbing her hand.


	6. Chapter 6

-Debriefing-

Vala knows how Daniel acts at a briefing. She's been to a million of them, even during her brief time at the SGC, and lord knows she wasn't focused on the content. She knows the way he leans forward whenever he wants to add some words in (which is almost all of the time). She knows the way that he fidgets with a pen whenever he's confused. No matter what, he's always engaged. He's always focused.

So she can't figure out why he refuses to make eye contact with anyone. He's staring at the table like it's his favorite artifact, and she's not sure that he's even listening all of the time.

Near the end of the briefing, General Hammond says, "I understand that you and Vala underwent an off-world marriage of convince. All off-world marriages are of course recognized by the United States government in the same way that marriages performed in other countries are, so we'll have to start the annulment process."

"No," Daniel says, without looking up.

The whole room stares at him. He glances at no-one, not even Vala, so he misses her broad grin.

"You… want to stay married to Ms. Mal Doran?" the General asks.

"We wouldn't qualify for annulment anyway," Daniel mutters.

It takes a second before the General realizes the meaning of the words. He doesn't say a word, but his eyes bulge. It was a few seconds more before Vala realizes that he'd just told the whole room that they'd had sex. Vala winks at the marine in the corner.

"Well, you both still have your quarters on base, and Daniel, Jack insisted on keeping your apartment. So… I guess we're dismissed," The General says.

Daniel pauses a moment, before he finally stands up. He looks at Vala, who is still sitting down. He tries to figure out what words he can use to explain this.

She stands up and faces him, hoping for some kind of an explanation. She isn't sure if he was just too honest to get an annulment when they had sex, or if he wanted to stay married to her.

"You want to have supper together?" he asks.

"Yeah, sure, I'll meet you in the mess?" she asks.

He looks at her as if she was completely insane, but says, "I'll pick you up in your quarters, six?"

"Ok," she says. The only question is, what will she do with all the hours between now and six o'clock?

Daniel doesn't have any question about what he is going to do with his time. He walks deliberately to Sam's quarters.

She stands up from her bench, and throws her arms around him. "It is so good to see you, again!"

"You too," he says, but he sounds distracted.

"What's up?" she asks.

"I wanted someone's advice on Vala and me," he says.

"It must have been quite the adventure sharing a house with her for all those months," Sam says with a look which can only be described as knowing.

"Ah, so the revelation from the meeting already got all around base?" he asks.

She smiles, "Walter and his e-mails. Come on, no-one is going to think the less of you. No man on Earth could withstand Vala for that long. You shouldn't beat yourself up about it."

"There was only one bed," Daniel says, sitting down and pushing his glasses up.

"Yeah, that would make it harder. Look, there is no reason you need to feel bad about this. No reason you need to feel responsible for her. You saved her life, and had consensual sex with her. You're not obliged to stay married to her."

"Right. But what if I want to?" he asks.

Sam stares at her friend in shock, "What to stay married to Vala?"

"Maybe?" he asks.

"Vala Mal Doran?" Sam asks again.

"You're right, it's insane, I'm sorry," he says, standing up to leave.

"Wait, you are serious?" Sam asks.

"I don't know. It's not like we have a real marriage, but… I would hate to lose what we have."

"Ok, what exactly do you have?" Sam asks, "I mean, are you just friends that have sex, or is it something deeper?"

"Well… I care about her."

"Do you talk? I mean, I can't imagine Vala ever having a serious conversation."

"We spent many a boring day next to each other. I don't think there is anything that we don't know about each other. I can even tell when she's lying now."

"Ok, so it sounds like you're in a relationship. That's good. But maybe you're not ready for marriage yet. You probably don't know if you want to be with her forever."

Daniel looks at her.

Sam takes in a sharp breath, "Wow, you're sure about forever?"

He smiles.

"Well, I'm happy for you. I'm not seeing where the dilemma lies, then."

"Well, it's not a real marriage, and I don't know if staying it in it the right thing to do."

"How is it not a real marriage?" Sam asks.

Daniel blinks at her.

"You love her, right?"

Daniel blushes, and starts stammering, "I… I…"

Sam smiles. "You don't decide to be with someone for the rest of your life if you don't love them."

Daniel shifts on the bench, "Last time I loved someone, she was taken by the Gou'ald."

"Daniel, are you sorry you loved Sha'uri?" Sam asks suddenly.

He shakes his head.

"Don't be scared of loving Vala either. She's a good person. A little crazy, and she loves to tease, but she's a good person."

He smiles. "I'm taking her out tonight. I thought I'd invite her to live with me. I don't know… I think if I talk about the rest of it she's going to get scared. She does scare easy. If I ask her to live at my house she is going to know that we are more than a legality, more than a convenience, right?"

"I think Vala has absolutely no trouble inventing ways that she is close to the people she cares about," Sam says with a smile.

"Ok, thanks for talking to me," Daniel says quickly, standing up to leave, feeling a thousand pounds lighter than he did when he first came in.

"No problem, and congratulations on your wedding. Sorry I wasn't there to celebrate the happy day."

-Date-

Vala opens the door wearing tight jeans and a wavy silky top. Daniel has forgotten how hot Vala looked in Earth clothes, not. Not that she didn't also look hot in the clothes that she wore in the Ori galaxy.

She takes one look at him in a suit, and says, "Ok, hold on while I change."

Daniel doesn't follow her into the room, and is horrified when she doesn't shut the door. She turns to him, confused, "Come on in."

"I thought you were… changing," he says bashfully.

"For the last eight months we've been changing in front of each other. It's silly to have you sit in the hall, come on in," she says with a quick smile.

He steps in quickly, but awkwardly, and closes the door behind him. He stands near it.

She takes her tone from him, and turns away from him before sliding a shirt off and a dress on. "How as your day?" she asks.

"Good. I went checked up on my apartment, and read some of the mission briefs from when we were not on SG-1."

"I wish I could say I've been that productive, mostly I caught up with friends," she says.

"That's good," Daniel nods.

She turns to him, and gives a quick smile before slipping out of her pants. She grabs some high heels from a box on the bed.

"Your room is in boxes?" Daniel asks.

"Yeah, apparently they didn't box up your apartment, because of your luck coming back to life, but my stuff all went into storage. They brought it back as soon as they found out I was still around, but I didn't get a chance to unpack. I guess I'm not quite as motivated as you are."

"That's good," Daniel says with an almost involuntary smile crossing her face.

"Is it?" Vala asks, feeling like she's missing not just a part but most of the conversation. She stands up from fastening the shoes on, and he puts a hand on the small of her back as she grabs her purse, and they walk out of the room.

"So, the whole time we were in the Ori galaxy, I wanted to take you out to eat, but since there were no restaurants in the Ori galaxy…" Daniel begins.

"And since you didn't want to touch on the fact that you weren't really sure we were ever going to get back to this one…" Vala continues.

"Right," he nods, trying to remember the exact moment that she started to share a brain with him, and predict every thought he had. "I didn't bring it up."

"So we're not eating on base, I gather," Vala says.

"No mystery meat tonight," he says as they walk into an elevator.

They're alone in the elevator, and Vala decides to venture to ask something she wouldn't have if other people were around. Otherwise, he might have got mad at her for being flirtatious. "Daniel, is this a date?"

"Yeah, is that ok?" Daniel asks, looking at her.

"Yeah," she says with a giant grin.

He takes her hands, and butterflies flutter in her stomach. They did a lot of things in their time together. Vala thought they'd done everything, and they pretty much had, sexually. But this, holding each other's hands, was something they'd never done. Who knew something so simple could be so electric?

"Tomorrow they're going to make you a full member of SG-1," he tells her.

That sits sort of odd on her stomach, "They didn't have to do that just because I'm with you," she tells them.

"Oh, they didn't. We would have done it a long time ago if we had known that we could trust you. After all that time that we spent together in another galaxy there is no question about my being able to trust you."

The elevator door opens, and Daniel marches deliberately out of it, but he doesn't drop her hand, and that means even more to her than the fact that he held it in the first place.

-Passion Fruit-

"Can I start you off with a drink?" the waiter asks.

"Absolutely," Vala says.

"Well, tonight's featured martinis are chocolate, passion fruit, and shochu plum," the waiter continues.

"They all sound wonderful… so one of each, then?" she asks.

"I think we are going to pace ourselves. She'll do the… passion fruit," he says.

Vala raises her eyebrows wondering if he meant that to be a suggestive comment.

"I'll have a bottled water," Daniel tells the waiter.

Once he leaves, Daniel smiles at her. "So… I had a question I wanted to ask you. Did you want to live with me?" The question is so sudden that Vala doesn't respond for a couple of seconds, "I mean… of course you can't answer now. You've never seen my apartment. But we can go there after the date, and then you can see if you want to live there. Of course, if you don't like it, we could find some place together that you would like," Daniel speech is rapid. It reminds her of all the briefings where he talks fast because he doesn't want anyone to interrupt him. Except, this time, she knows that he really does want someone to interrupt him.

She puts her hand on her arm, "I'd love to live with you. I'm sure wherever you are is fine."

Daniel relaxes back in his chair, and Vala figures he was probably so nervous about asking this question, that she shouldn't push him any farther with any other questions. She just doesn't want to stay in limbo any longer, "You didn't want to get an annulment," she states plainly.

Daniel looks like he's going to throw up, "Do you?"

"No," she rushes on, regretting that she panicked him, "I just wanted to know what it meant that you didn't want an annulment."

He looks down at the table for a long minute, and then he meets her eyes, "I'm sorry, I… I'm not sure right now."

"Ok," she says. A foot slides out of her shoe, and onto his across the table. Footsie, that's another thing that they've never done. Their chairs in the house in the Ori galaxy never faced each other.

He giggles as her foot slips inside his pant leg. God… he's never giggled for her before. Everything is different when they're on Earth.


	7. Chapter 7

-Home-

"So… ah… this is my place," he says, opening the door. He obliviously spent a good part of his day off cleaning the place for her. It has the strong scent of pinesol about it.

The foyer is bare, apart from one or two artifacts hanging from the wall. It's once you enter the hallway that everything begins to feel quite comfortable, and homey. A high counter is on the right, and it's covered with bric-a-brac and artifacts. There are tables coming in from the other side covered with the same sort of stuff. It reduces the size of the hallway in half, and if it had been a few weeks ago when she was nine months pregnant when she saw it, she might have thought that I was much too small. Now, she thinks it is just the right size.

Over the countertop she can see a table that reminds her of the one they had in the Ori galaxy. It is quite obvious that that table usually only has one chair around it, but Daniel has pulled a mismatched chair over from another table on the other side of the room, obviously hoping that Vala would be sitting in it soon.

The two of them walk through the hallway to find a little kitchen. It has a lot more conveniences than any kitchen that she's ever used, but she thinks it's pretty typical for Earth. The fridge is a long way away, on the other side of the table. There are pots and pans hanging from the ceiling. For a second, she hates that, but then she decides in a second that she would never have a house that didn't have pots and pans hanging from the ceiling.

Past the dining room, they go down two stairs, and enter a cozy living room. The room has the feel of a library. It's covered in bookshelves, and the sort of couches you might expect to see in an old lady's living room. It has a large fireplace which has a few more artifacts sitting on it. There is a large piano in the corner.

"Do you play?" she asks.

"I had lessons at one of the foster homes that I was at. I always think I am going to play. I don't ever get around to it, though. I never got to be that great."

Vala peaks into a study of what appear to be wall to wall bookshelves, and a very impressively-sized desk.

From living room Daniel opens up two large doors to small patio overlooking the street below.

"Do you like it?" he asks as he stands behind her on the patio.

"Yeah. But Daniel? Where do you sleep?" she asks.

He laughs, "I didn't want to show you the bedroom straight off."

"You were afraid we'd never get out of it?" she asks.

He grins, and nods. She tries to remember when he started flirting back. This thing between them, it got real so slowly that it is hard for her to put her finger on the moment when any part of the realness of it began.

He takes her by her hand, and slowly leads her back into the hallway. He enters the small study, and pulls some frosted glass doors apart to reveal a bedroom. The back wall is made of brick. It's smaller than the study, and she doesn't question why for even a second. Its Daniel's patented safety net. There is a bedside table next to the bed on either side, and a trunk at its foot, all of them littered with books and artifacts even though he's been gone all that time. Besides that, there is only room to walk.

"I am used to small rooms from growing up," he explains, even though they both know that he really wouldn't have to. That she would have guessed it all, even if he had chosen not to explain.

"You must have felt right at home with our tiny bedroom in the Ori galaxy," she says.

"I really did," he says squeezing her hand, "But I wasn't about to admit it. Look, we can move into the other bedroom if you want," he tells her.

"This is great. And I wouldn't want to move you out of the study," Vala tells him.

"No, ah… the other, other bedroom," he says. He leads her by the hand back through the door at the far end of the bedroom. It's a good sized bathroom with a tub that she can soak in for her first real warm bath since they got stuck in the Ori galaxy. Oh, better yet, she and Daniel can share the bath!

Through another set of doors there is a bedroom which is about twice the size of the one that Daniel has chosen as his own room. It's more a storage area than a bedroom. There are boxes stacked in every corner, and artifacts laying on the floor without any boxes. She's afraid that if she so much as breaths she's going to break something.

He stares at the mess with a blush coming up his cheeks. "When you are a foster kid, you have nothing. You have a garbage bag full of clothes, if you're lucky, that you carry from house to house. Some of them even used to get frustrated when I came home from the school library with an arm full of books. Even as an adult, I kept losing everything. I was broke right before I joined the Stargate program, and had nothing but what I could carry. The first couple times that they thought I died after I joined the program, they got rid of all of my stuff, and I had to start over."

"So now you save it," she says.

"I'll get rid of it, I know that…" he begins.

She kisses him on the neck, "It's ok, Daniel. You are allowed to have some stuff. I don't think the less of you, because of it. I mean, we might have to organize it a bit. Maybe… ah…." Vala looks down.

"You can tell me to get rid of this crap. I won't be offended."

"I was just wondering what we'd do… but… never mind," she says, looking down.

He lifts her chin up in a way that forces her to look at him in the face. She still holds out for as long as she can. When the words finally come out of her they come out in a wave, "I know that you said you might not be able to have a kid. If you can't that's fine. I don't need to have a baby, but…" she starts to cry.

"I know, it's ok," he says, turning to hold her.

"She was my baby, Daniel!" Vala sobs.

"I know. She was mine too," he says. They hold onto each other for a long time with Daniel running a hand through her hair. Finally he says, "When?"

"What?" she asks, pulling away, her hair which was a bit tangled in his hand causing her no small amount of pain.

"When were you planning on making this baby?" he asks.

"Now?" she asks. There is no flirtation, no coyness in her speech, only a desperate need to be a mother.

"Vala, you just had a baby. You have to give your body time to heal."

"Adria healed me," Vala protests.

"I know, she healed certain parts of you, but not everything," Daniel says softly, "When you carry a baby, your blood and your hormones and your…everything changes. I think we need to take a couple of months to recoup before we try again."

"It could take months, a year, just to get pregnant. I'm not young, Daniel; if we wait too long, we might just have waited too long," Vala pleads.

"I know, but it could also happen on the first try, and if I was responsible for wearing out your body you…" his voice chokes enough that Vala looks at him cautiously, "I worked with this tribal people in South America once. The girls got married when they were thirteen, fourteen years old. They started popping out babies right away, they just kept popping them out. They'd get pregnant a couple of months, maybe half a year after they gave birth. It wore their bodies down. They had kids so fast, and… I could never do that to you."

"Daniel, I am not some teenage girl. You don't have to protect me. I am perfectly capable of taking care of myself."

"I know, but I would never want to hurt you. We'll use protection for two or three months, and then we can start trying," Daniel says with the air of a command. Then, softer, he says, "Ok?"

She nods, "We can still practice, though, right?" she asks kissing her neck.

"Yes, but not tonight," he says back pushing her a little ways away.

She gives him a questioning look. The last two months of her pregnancy she was rarely in the mood for sex, and she figured that Daniel would be relieved he didn't have to wait weeks for her body to heal like they would have if Adria had never cured her. She'd expected him to be crawling all over her.

"I have a fertility test in the morning. You can't have sex right before that." She raises her eyebrow at him, waiting for an explanation, "You think I didn't know you wanted a baby? I had to know it… if I could give that to you."

Vala puts a hand on each side of his cheek, "Daniel, you know that I want you even if I can't have a kid? You are my everything."

"They always change their mind," he whispers.

"Who?" she asks. Then her almost psychic link with him kicks in. "The foster families."

"No-one really wants me."

"I do," she assures him. He's learned how to tell when she's lying, and much to his amazement, she's not lying right now.

-Moving in-

"We are getting pizza and a beer for this, right, Jackson?" Cam asks.

"I don't remember anyone offering that," Vala says.

"It's a traditional Earth thing," Daniel explains.

"You should make me a list of your Earth traditions," Vala says, pouting.

"Yeah, if I was capable of writing that I would be getting paid a whole lot more," Daniel jokes, lifting a box.

"I just have two questions, Princess. How exactly did you acquire this much crap in the short time that you have been on Earth? And was it all acquired legally?"

"That's nothing, you should see Daniel's…" Vala begins, but stops short in the middle of a sentence when Daniel gives her a glare.

"We all know that Daniel's apartment looks like a museum," Cam says.

"Oh, I think Vala is referring to the spare room in Daniel's house," Sam says with a chortle.

"What?" Cam says.

"Daniel is a bit of a hoarder," Sam explains.

"How come I am the last to know everything?" Cam mutters.

"Well, Teal'c and I have helped clean out his apartment after his 'deaths', and Vala lives with him," Sam explains. "Let's go hang your dresses before they get wrinkled," she says to Vala, leaving the boys alone.

Daniel walks over to the fridge to hand each of his friends a beer. It's a little early for pizza still, so he doesn't reach for the phone.

"So you and Vala?" Cam asks, with his eyebrow raced.

"Yeah," Daniel says.

"How genuine is your affection for Vala Mal Doran?" Teal'c says.

"I'm pretty serious about this whole thing," Daniel says, slightly nervous by the fact that he has no idea where the big man is going with this conversation.

"I think he is trying to ask how serious Vala is," Cam says with a laugh.

Teal'c replies, "No, I want to ensure the emotional wellbeing of Vala MalDoran."

Daniel gives his friend a look of understanding, "Because she's not as strong as she pretends to be, or even as strong as she thinks she is, right?"

Teal'c nods.

"I know. She's safe with me, Teal'c, and it means a lot to me that she has you to look out for her."

"So you're super serious about the Princess, then," Cam says in obvious surprise.

Vala comes out of the bedroom before Daniel can answer, "Do they deliver pie with pizza? You know, pizza and pie?"

"Pizza pie, its one thing," Daniel says.

"Oh," Vala says, visibly disappointed.

"I'll go get a pie," Daniel says, grabbing his car keys.

"Any other questions?" Cam asks Teal'c.


	8. Chapter 8

-We Passed-

"Thank-you," Daniel says, hanging up from a phone call that Vala is sure is from the doctor. "We got the test results back," he tells her.

"Did we pass?" Vala asks nervously.

Daniel grins at her typical strange turn of phrase, "Yeah, we passed. My counts aren't perfect, but with a couple of adjustments and a little patience…"

"We can make a baby," Vala says, running across the room to place herself on his lap.

He answers by giving her a kiss.

-Facing Demons-

"Daniel, have you ever been to a psychologist?" Vala asks one day out of the blue, as the two of them work together in his lab.

"Well, I've been made to go see on a few times since working at the SGC, and I went a couple times when I was in foster care, but I've never gone of my own free will."

"I can see that you don't have a very high opinion of them," she says.

"Well, I was once locked up by one when I wasn't crazy. Granted, I was acting crazy, so it wasn't completely his fault, but still."

"I'm sorry," she says.

He looks at her, and suddenly realizes that this conversation actually has very little to do with him, "Did you want to see one or something?"

"No, I… ah… saw one when I was younger, a Tok'ra psychologist, so I am sure it was a little different with the Tok'ra. She told me that I had to go back to my village, and face my fears. I mean, it obviously didn't work out well for me, since I was nearly beaten to death by them. But the concept… isn't bad. Have you ever been back to the museum where you parents died?"

"Never in reality. There was a rather nasty video game hallucination that took me back there once."

"We really do have the weirdest jobs in the history of the world don't we?" Vala asks.

"Pretty much."

"I'd like to go with you," she says firmly.

"What?" he says.

"Come on, I've barely seen any of your fair planet, and I think it would really help you," she says, hugging him tight to herself. He tenses as she does that, and she doesn't miss it.

"Ok, the next time we have leave, we'll take a little trip to New York," he agrees, "But we're not just going to do this. We're going to do touristy things, too. See the sights, go to a musical, and, oh… you are going to love shopping in New York," he smiles.

"Ok," she says, bouncing up and down ever so slightly, and having no trouble agreeing to her husband's demands, "But we're not just going to do the museum. I want to see other things from when you were small."

He nods reluctantly.

-Danielle-

Daniel stands in front of the brick building, knowing that he has to give some sort of preamble of this place to the woman standing next to him. She wraps on arm around his back, and waits patiently.

"Well, you said you wanted to know where I grew up," he says with a shrug.

"Ah," she says, reading word orphanage on the sign on the door. "I thought you were in foster care."

"I was, but just because you are in foster care doesn't necessarily mean that you're at someone's home. I spent a big chunk of my time in foster care at this group home."

"You never talked about that before," Vala says softly, hoping that her voice doesn't give away how betrayed she feels by that fact. She thought that they told each other everything. She told him far more about herself than she had ever told anyone before. The fact that she was now discovering that there were large parts of his life that she knew nothing about bothered her.

"There really wasn't much to tell. Not much happened when I was here. I was just… years of nothing. I didn't even bother hoping when I was here."

"Let's go inside," she says, prompting him ever-so-gently on the back.

"Vala, you can't just walk into a group home."

"You need to conquer this place, just like the museum this morning," she says, giving him another nudge.

"They're not going to let us in," Daniel protests again, completely unwilling to budge even one step toward where his wife wants him to go.

"As long as they tell me that, and you don't, I won't say another word about it," she says. This causes him to take a step forward. He really believes that they aren't going to let them go in, and if it is someone besides him telling her that, she's going to be a lot more willing to believe it.

Vala walks quickly into the home, and smiles at the lady at the front desk, "I know this is highly unusual, but my husband," Daniel grins, because that's the first time he's every heard her say that in English, and it sounds so good coming from her lips, "Grew up here, and he would really like to show me around the place."

"Sure, that shouldn't be a problem," the lady says.

Daniel blinks at her in surprise.

Vala silently pulls on his arm until finally he yields and follows her down the hallway. "So where was your room?" she whispers.

"I can't believe they let us go back here! We could be anyone!" he mutters.

"I have to be honest with you, darling, that lady really didn't look like she cared a great deal about her job. Now come on, don't look a gift horse in the ear, show me where your room is."

"The phrase is gift horse in the mouth," he corrects, "And the room didn't matter so much. I always shared that with a couple of other kids. There was this little place on the third floor," he says, taking her up an old wooden staircase that has more beauty in it than she'd expected from the old building.

The third floor has large windows that overlook the town in a view that is not entirely dissimilar to the one that he has from his current apartment, not that she's exactly going to point out the resemblance to her husband for fear it would ruin the enjoyment of the balcony (and coffee on the balcony at home was one of her favorite portions of the day).

"There is this little alcove, maybe three foot by three foot. I have no idea why it's there. I mean, was never used for anything when I lived there. Anyway, I used to take a book up here and read a lot when I was a kid," Daniel explains as they go to the spot.

To the shock of both of them, the spot is occupied. There is a girl of about eight years. She's got hair which exactly Daniel's color, but which is done in the pigtail with barrettes style that Vala is wearing. Her nose is buried in a book, and a small stuffed camel is being petted with a free hand.

She looks up to see them approach, and blinks at them instead of asking a question.

"I'm sorry," Daniel says, trying to turn and walk away. He just can't do it, though, he's not so unfamiliar with the way that fate works to do that, "Is that the book of the dead?"

She nods her head without really looking up.

"But it's not a translation," he points out.

She rolls her eyes, "Yeah, so."

"You can read Ancient Egyptian hyrogyphics?" he asks.

She nods her head, still not having bothered to really look up from her reading at the strangers in front of her.

He sits down in front of her, "Can you speak it, though?"

She rolls her eyes again, "Of course not. But that's only because no-one can."

He replies to her in Abydonain, "That's only because they don't know where to put the vowels." She looks at him with interest for the first time. He extends her hand. "I'm Daniel Jackson."

"Not Dr. Daniel Jackson the archeologist?" she asks with the tone you would only expect from someone her age if they were meeting Justin Bieber.

"Yes."

"Oh my gosh, my parents named me after you! I'm Danielle Adams," she says, shaking his hand with the solemnestsolemnity of an adult.

"Adams," he says searching his memory for who his parents might be. After all, the Egyptology world was small enough that if they were both active in it, he ought to know them, "Who were your parents?"

Danielle lowers her eyes. "They weren't archeologists or anything. They were more interested in your more… outlandish theories."

"Ah," Daniel says, realizing in a moment that her parents were far more likely to be alien conspiracy geeks than serious academics.

"What happened to them?" Vala asks, sitting down next to the girl.

Daniel wants to scold her, to explain to her that this is not the sort of thing that you ask an orphan that you just met mere moments ago, but the girl answers in a firm and calm tone of voice that lets him know she isn't bothered by the question, "Dad drove off a cliff trying to chase a helicopter he thought was a UFO."

"And your mom was in the car?" Vala asks.

"So was I," the girl says softly, lifting up the sleeve of her shirt to reveal burnt skin. Vala remembers what it was like to be on fire, and she touches the arm with eyes showing such sympathy that Danielle doesn't flinch, even though it's the first time that the arm has been touched since the accident by anyone besides doctors or nurses.

"I saw my parents die, too," Daniel says softly. The girl blinks at him. "I went to the museum where they died for the first time today."

Vala stares at him, shocked, unsure why he is sharing so much. It took her months to get this much out of him, and she feels bad that she is this jealous of a little girl.

"I've always wondered. Do you regret that conference? The one where you talked about aliens, and everyone thought you were nuts?"

"No," he says with a smile, "It led me down the path that I am on now."

"What are you doing now? You haven't published anything in forever," the girl says.

"You've read the stuff I published?" he asks obviously impressed.

"Yeah, I tried them for the first time when I was only five years old. I didn't understand much of them. I just read them, because I wanted to understand more about the person that I was named after. So then I started reading books about Egypt to understand your papers; easy ones for kids first, and then harder and harder ones. Before long I realized that I was going to have to learn to read the language for myself if I was really going to understand anything."

"And then you realized that Ancient Egyptian is not one language, but several," she says with a smile.

"Yeah, I'm really only fluent in this," she says, holding up the book, "But I can understand a few other dialects with a dictionary handy."

"You're one smart kid," Vala says obviously impressed.

The girl looks down, and Daniel thinks that maybe she doesn't believe it. He didn't believe that he was smart for a very long time himself.

"Hey, you are a genius," he tells her with a smile.

"Not really," she says shaking her head, "I have a TBI. Since the accident," she shakes her head, "I can't even tie my shoes."

"But you can still read hieroglyphics?" Daniel asks softly. He isn't sure if the book is a comfort item in the same way that the stuffed animal is.

She nods her head.

"Then you are still a genius. Don't you know that all geniuses have things they can't do?" Vala asks.

The girl smiles at her, looking somewhat relieved at their approval. She opens her mouth to ask her namesake another questions that has been burning on her mind for a long time, but is interrupted by a staff member of the house, a different one than the one who let them in, "What are you doing here?" she asks

Daniel and Vala stand, and Vala smoothes out her pants.

"Nice to meet you, Danielle," Daniel says, knowing that his time is up.


	9. Chapter 9

-Can we keep her?-

Puppy dog eyes.

"No," he tells her.

Bigger puppy eyes.

"Vala, you can't just take a kid out of an orphanage."

"But she doesn't have parents, that's why she's in an orphanage, and we want a kid. We waited nine months for a kid."

"She's not Adria," Daniel says clenching his teeth.

"No, you're right. She's here on Earth, and she actually needs and wants us. So she's nothing like Adria."

"Vala, it just doesn't work that way. You just don't walk into an orphanage, and see a kid, and take it home."

"Ok, so how does it work?" Vala asks.

"I'm not sure, but I bet there is a lot of paperwork involved."

"Well, we both work for the government. We're not afraid of paperwork," she says.

"Vala, you want to have a baby. She is not a baby. She is not flesh and blood. You just have to be patient. We're going to have a baby."

"Of course we are! Just because we adopt a child doesn't mean we won't have a baby of our own in a few weeks. Daniel, you spent all those years waiting for a family, and you never got one. We can be her family."

He bites his lip, "This will probably take months."

Vala squeals, and jumps up and down.

"It might not happen," he tells her.

Vala looks somber, "Why not?"

"A lot of people have to say that you're a good parent before you'll be allowed to adopt. Maybe one of these people won't agree with us, or maybe she's got some family member that won't let go of her, but also doesn't want her."

"Like your grandpa?" Vala asks.

Daniel nods his head.

"Well, I'm going to try my best to convince them that I would be a good mother," Vala promises.

"Anyone who knows you ought to know that you will be an amazing mother," he says, planting a kiss on her forehead.

-Home Visit-

"Maybe we shouldn't have decorated the room already. Maybe it looks like we're too sure that she's coming home to us," Vala says, fidgeting with her dress. She looks very much like a 1950s housewife.

She stands up, and rushes toward the oven to turn it down, "What if she's late? I timed it so that the whole place would smell like apple pie when she came, but what if she was late? It will just smell like something burnt."

He stands up, and pulls her into a hug, "Vala, everything is fine. You've been cleaning the house for a solid week."

"What if I'm not got enough?" she asks, with terror in her voice, from her husband's chest.

"You are definitely good enough, but if they fail to see that, then that little girl will at least know that someone loved her, and that someone wanted her. We'll have a baby ourselves. It won't be perfect, but it will be ok."

The doorbell rings, and Vala gives her dress one last smooth before the door opens to admit a social worker inside.

"We want to show you her room first," Vala blurts, without any more pre-amble.

"Ok," the woman says, following her.

Vala leads her through the kitchen to the room which was a few short weeks ago covered in boxes. When they had started the process of getting the room set up, she suggested they get a storage unit for all of Daniel's stuff. However, he said, "I want to make room for a family in my life, not just our place."

So he'd donated a lot of it to museums, and what he wasn't ready to get rid of was moved the SGC or the study.

The social worker doesn't seem to have much of a poker face, because she is obviously impressed. The walls of the room are the color of desert sand, and the ceiling is sky blue. Between them there is lighter line covered with rows and rows of hieroglyphics. The far wall contains pyramids. One is so large, that the top of it is not far from the ceiling, it is a loft, like a bunk bed, but the bed is not on the top of the pyramid. The bed on the floor looks like a sarcophagus. A box is made the size or a twin bed. A box spring and mattress are sitting in the box, but the walls of the box extend above them, making the sort of fort that Daniel longed for when he was in foster care after losing his parents.

"But it's like a playground," Vala says with her eyes shining. She is barely able to contain herself from grabbing the social worker's arms and dragging her.

One side of the pyramid is a climbing wall which goes to a platform near the ceiling. It contains a desk, pointing out toward the room. The other side of the pyramid is a steep slide.

"That is very unique," the woman says, trying a bit harder now to hold back her enthusiasm.

There are two more pyramids, which Vala quickly displays. The medium one is full of books with drawers for all the parts that are too odd shaped for books. The smallest is a toy box that is already full of a variety of dolls, legos, and other toys. The dresser and closet are covered with hieroglyphics, and a large camel sits in the middle of the room.

"She likes camels!" Vala announces finishing off her tour.

"Well, she's actually very interested in the Ancient Egypt as a whole, and that is where the theme of the room came from," Daniel says, pushing up his glasses.

"Right, and you are an Egyptologist, correct?" the woman asks.

"By training, yes, but right now I work for the United States Airforce, as an interpreter," Daniel says.

"You also work for them?" the woman asks Vala.

"Yes," she says.

"Is there a chance that you would be deployed?" the woman asks.

"No, we both work for the military, but we're not military. We'd never have to take orders per say, and we're not going to be sent overseas. I won't deny that out work is a little big dangerous, but we have back up plans for every contingency. We included those in the file…" he says, staring at the file in her hand, and hoping that she has it.

"Neither one of you have any family around though, do you?" she asks.

"No, I grew up in foster care. Vala's father is still around, but he did not immigrate to this country with her."

"But the people that they work with… they're like family," Vala blurts.

He takes her hand giving it a quick squeeze to comfort her nerves. The social worker sees it, and gives a quick smile. If he's perceptive and empathetic enough to comfort an adult, surely he'll be able to help an eight year old that has been through something similar to what he went through himself when he was a child.

"I'll show you the bathroom. It connects to our room through there," Daniel says after a pause of a few seconds which is far more silence than he can endure with his current nerves.

"You realize that Danielle has some special needs correct?" the woman asks them, as she looks around the bathroom, and makes some check marks on a form.

"Yes, she has some effects from the accident," Vala says.

"She has extensive damage from the accident. She has burn scars over 1/5 of her body. She has a traumatic brain injury which requires special education, and she has seizures."

"Seizures?" Vala asks nervously.

"Is that a problem?" the woman asks.

"Ma'am, no matter what problems that child had, we'd want her just as much," Vala says.

Daniel opens up the door to their room. "So this is where we sleep."

"You gave her the bigger room?" the social worker says, surprised.

"Well, this is large enough for us," Daniel says not sure if this was in their favor or not.

"This is our study," Vala says, "When Daniel lived here alone he had a huge desk. But when I moved in we got rid of it, and got two little ones. Then when we met Dani we added a desk on. They're all facing each other, so we could all sit in here and work, and she could do school work, and still be together."

"Do you often take work home?" the social worker asks.

"Oh no! I didn't mean to imply that!" Vala says quickly.

"I do quite a bit," Daniel confesses. "I have a tendency to become completely absorbed in my work. But I am going to work on it."

"He's always there when you need him though, and my attention span is such that I am totally ready to do something else when I leave work at the end of the day," Vala says.

The woman smiles, and Daniel leads them out into the living room. "Can I ask why you decided to go down the path of adoption?"

Daniel lets a little chuckle fly, "To be honest, we didn't seriously talk about it until we met her accidently."

"But we wanted kids," Vala adds.

"Vala was pregnant, it didn't end well," Daniel says deciding to be honest without being very complete. He figures that the social worker probably isn't going to ask a whole lot of follow up questions to that, "We're still going to have a biological child."

Vala gives him a smile of encouragement, "Frankly, we both know what it's like to grow up ignored. We don't want that to happen to his little girl."

The woman nods, "Can I get another glance at the kitchen?"

"Yes, and then pie!" Vala says, with a bit too much enthusiasm.


	10. Chapter 10

-Homecoming-

"Are you sure that we couldn't pick her up from school?" Vala asks, popping up and pacing the office of the group home one more time.

"We're not put down as someone to pick her up. They wouldn't even let us take her," Daniel remind her.

"She should be here by now," Vala says.

Daniel laughs at his wife's excitement.

Just then a few kids from her elementary school trot through the door. "Dani!" Vala says.

"I thought you guys wouldn't be here until tomorrow," she says, throwing her arms around one of their necks before the other.

"Well, you can't stay with us until the adoption tomorrow, but we can keep you out until eight tonight," Daniel says.

"We also thought we'd help you pack," Vala says, holding up some checkered pastel suitcases.

Dani stares, not seeming to understand.

Daniel goes down on her knees before her. "You know, sweetie, every time I moved when I was a kid, I had a garbage bag. These suitcases are yours."

"Thanks," she says, a bit teary eyed. "Only… you won't be mad if I can't fill them?" she asks tentatively.

"Of course not, sweetie. I've been shopping for you for weeks already to fill up your drawers at home, and I would be more than happy to continue on shopping with you," Vala says.

Dani smiles, and put her little hand in Vala's hand as they march up the stairs to her room.

-Memories-

"So these are still their artifacts?" Danielle asks, amazed at the variety of artifacts at the museum.

"Yeah, everything is still here but the stones they died under," Daniel says.

"Doctor Jackson?" a museum worker says, approaching them, "I didn't expect to see you back here so soon."

Daniel grins, "Well, I had to show my… daughter. Well, I guess she's not really my daughter until tomorrow."

The man blinks at her, "Welcome. I assume you want a behind-the-scenes tour."

"You're kidding!" Danielle exclaims.

"You can even touch the hieroglyphics," Daniel whispers to her.

-0-

The adoption itself wasn't very impressive. They just stood in front of a judge and answered a couple of questions. It was the anticipation and the preparation that made it more interesting than the school she would normally be at on a Friday afternoon.

Then there was the really good part, the going home.

"I've never flown before," she says, placing her hand confidently in Daniel's. She's too old for the action, he notes, and he'll have to break her of the habit, but not until she's comfortable though.

"Are you scared?" he asks.

"I don't know," she looks into her face, like a toddler who has fallen down, and is curious as to whether or not it's been injured.

"I don't think so," he says with ease, "You're too smart to be afraid of an adventure."

"Adventure," she says.

"So what did you bring along to read?" he asks.

"I brought you something. I mean, if you want to. My teacher gave it to me when I left school. We're supposed to ask someone at the new school for the file, but she said it's faster to give it to the parents," she says, pulling a file out of her pack.

Daniel peeks inside, "Ah… your IEP. Thank you, very responsible."

"That is way too boring for a trip. You're supposed to have fun when you are on vacations. Do you like tic-tac-toe?" Vala pleads

-0-

Danielle flitted all over the room, and after she had closely examined every detail, and unpacked, it was time for supper and bed.

"Vala… I think you should see if she needs any help," Daniel says.

"She's eight years old, Daniel, I'm sure she can get ready for bed by herself."

"She's had a traumatic brain injury. Her motor skills have been impaired. Based on what her IEP says, she has trouble zipping her coat and she's already told us she can't do shoe laces. Maybe there are other things she can't do. Possibly things it would be better for a woman to help her with. I'm going to head into the living room. Come and get me if there is going to be story time."

Vala smiles, and knocks on the door of the bathroom.

"I'm in here," Danielle says.

"I know hun. I just wanted you to know that I'm here if you need help with anything. It's just us girls in here right now."

Danielle opens the door. She's wearing a short sleeve nightgown, and it's the first time that Vala seen how far the scars go up. They snake around her back.

"There is some cream, and I can't reach the spot on my back," she explains, handing a small jar to her new mother.

"Ok," Vala says, dipping her fingers in. She touches her fingers lightly to the skin, but draws them back when there is a flinch. "I'm sorry, did I hurt you?"

"No, it's just cold."

Vala rubs the lotion gently in. Danielle closes her eyes, obviously enjoying the relief that it brings.

"Do the burns hurt all the time?"

"They do, sometimes when the skin stretches or… sometimes for no reason at all," Danielle says.

Vala finishes with the lotion, and puts it on the counter, "You'll tell us if you need something right? Whether it's help with something you can't do because of the accident, or some food you like that we don't buy, or anything."

Danielle nods.

"We'd love for you to meet our friends tomorrow afternoon, but we totally understand if you don't want to hang out with a bunch of old people."

"It's not like I know anyone my own age here yet. I will, though, when I start going to school," Danielle adds quickly when she sees her new mother distressed at the first part of the words.

"Right, tomorrow morning we're going to go next door and meet the Lopezes. There are two girls, and they're both younger than you - three and six. Mrs. Lopez is going to be looking after you sometimes when we're both working. We planned it so that whenever we can, one of us will be home when you aren't in school. Sometimes, though, we're both going to be gone at the same time, even overnight."

Dani looks a bit alarmed, "I'm sorry I'm messing up your life."

Vala laughs, "Oh, honey, you're the best thing that has ever happened to me in this life so far," she says, giving the girl a little kiss on her forehead, "If that means I have to sit in Daniel's office a bit less often and pretend I understand what he's talking about, well, then so be it!"

-The team-

Danielle knew that she was getting a new family. She just hadn't realized how large and how odd that family was. Teal'c was quite intimidating at first, but when everyone started playing a card game that she didn't know, he volunteered to be her partner to teach it to her. Within five minutes he was telling her a "Jaffa joke" (he was actually from Egypt!) and she was dying with laughter, mostly at the fact that it wasn't even close to funny.

Cam was defiantly cool; he was the sort of person that you would want on your side.

It was Sam that really impressed her. She was beautiful, and smart, and strong. She was everything that Danielle hoped to grow up to be. Don't get her wrong, Danielle loved Vala. There was no-one else that she would want to shop with, and when it came to being read to in bed she would choose no-one else. However, Vala wasn't a genius, and that was something that Danielle would like to recover about herself.

"I'm sorry you spent the whole day hanging out with old people," Vala says as she puts dishes away.

"Are you kidding? That was fun! I've never agreed with the idea that people should only hang out with people that were the same age as you. For most of human history, people had friends of all different ages."

"Archeologist in training," Daniel says proudly. Then his brow furrows, "What do you like to do for fun? There are a couple of hours until you need to go to bed."

"I'm going to read some of those books you gave me in that bookshelf," she says, with true excitement in her voice.

"I'll meet you in the living room," he says, with just as big a grin on his face.

"I'm surrounded by nerds," Vala mutters, picking up a fashion magazine.

-First Day-

"Are you guys sure that you don't want me to come with you?" Daniel asks as they sit around the breakfast table the next day.

"There is no sense in both of us taking a day off," Vala says easily as she uses her spoon to scoop out the last of the marshmallows from her Lucky Charms. She obviously has no intention of eating the other part of the cereal, and this annoys Daniel more than he would like to admit. Vala had made an argument that they needed the cereal because there was a kid in the house now. Daniel now realizes that was a clever lie.

"Ok, but you need to know that I would," Daniel says.

"I'm not going to think that you don't like me just because you don't spend every minute with me," Dani assures him.

"Ok, well, my parents were workaholics, so if I ever start to get like that you guys are going to have to tell me. You guys matter more," he says.

"You're going to be late," Vala points out.

Daniel rinses out his bowl, and plants a kiss on the forehead of both of his girls before he runs out of the room.

"We'd better get going, too," Vala says, standing up to dump her own bowl, with all of the healthy parts of her breakfast in them.

Dani grabs her backpack and they head out of the room. Vala is more than a little nervous about driving with Dani in the car. It's only been a couple of weeks since she passed the driver's test, and Daniel bought her a used car. The thing was old, and not what you would call trust worthy, but Sam worked on it for a couple of nights, and assured them that even though it didn't look very nice, it had a heart of gold.

Still, Vala has never actually driven without Daniel in the car, and now she has a little girl relying on her. Still, Dani was the whole reason that she got her license. She figured that too much of the parenting would fall on her husband if she never learned to drive.

Five minutes later, they arrive at the school. Vala tried to time it so that the secretary wouldn't be too busy when she arrived, but she's a little off, so they have to wait in the middle of a crowd of people. When they get up to the front, there are a few registration forms. When Vala tells them about the IEP, they are referred to the special education teacher.

There are several, but the secretary glances at the first page of the IEP, and guesses at the one that she needs to go to.

They walk down the hallway with the slightly crazy directions of, "take a right at the blue hallway, take a left at the purple hallway, and find the green hallway. It's the second-to-the-last on the right."

Vala plans on knocking at the door, but it's open and full of kids.

"Hi, my daughter is starting school here tomorrow," she says to the nearest adult.

Dani starts a bit at the word "daughter", and Vala hopes that's ok. She doesn't know what she would say if it wasn't. Perhaps she should add the word "adopted" in, but that makes her feel like Dani might think that she didn't completely belong in this family.

"Hi, nice to meet you," a different woman says, standing up from behind a table.

"The secretary though she might belong here. I brought her paperwork from the last school," Vala says, feeling awkward and holding out her IEP for the woman.

"What's your name, honey?" the woman says, bending down before Dani.

"Danielle, Vala and Daniel just adopted me on Saturday."

"Well, welcome, sweetie. So, did you spend most of your time in the special education classroom, or did you go to a regular class at your old school?"

"I just saw Ms. Lewis for a little bit each day. I wasn't in special education before the accident. I'm getting better. I just forgot a lot of the math from before the accident. Sometimes I still forget little things… like how to use a fork right or something. It's really embarrassing, but after I work with whatever it is for a little bit, I always remember how to do it properly."

"Car accident, honey?" the woman asks, still on her knees.

Danielle nods.

"Nasty things. I'm so sorry you had to go through that," the woman says

with honest sympathy in her voice.

"She has seizures sometimes," Vala adds.

"I haven't had one in months. The medicine is working," Dani corrects.

"I'm new to the whole motherhood thing," Vala apologizes.

The woman stands, and waves the IEP that is still in her hand, "Oh, trust me, you're a lot more on top of it than most people. Do you mind sticking around for a bit and saying hi to some of your classmates in this room while I give this a glance? Then I'll be able to give you a little better idea of the kind of programming we'll do for her."

Vala nods, somewhat relieved. Dani skips off to talk to the kid nearest to her. It's a boy in a wheelchair. Vala would have guessed that he can't even talk, but when Dani greets him, he says an enthusiastic, "Hi, hi, hi!"

"You dropped your pencil," Dani says, picking up a large square one from the tray on the kid's wheelchair, and handing it to the kid.

He takes it, and presses it against the paper, making something that looks like a scribble to Vala. Dani takes a glance at it, and says, "Alec? Is that your name?"

The boy makes a sound which obviously means "yes", even though it sounds nothing like the word.

Vala's stomach sinks. This is where they want to put her baby girl?


	11. Chapter 11

-Pillow Talk-

He knows that she is worried, even though she is trying to pretend that she's asleep. He reaches over and grabs her hand under the blankets of the bed.

She turns to him, "You should have seen that room."

He nods, and stares at her in the dark, waiting for her to tell him what was so horrible about it.

"Those kids could barely talk! There was one in the corner who was putting together a puzzle like a three-year-old!"

"Honey, did you actually read the IEP?" he asks.

"No, Daniel, but I know her. I know Dani, she doesn't belong there," Vala says.

He takes a deep, sad breath. "Honey, that accident did some serious damage. She's still very bright when it comes to reading or social studies. But the math… it's pretty much all gone. She sometimes has trouble counting. The motor skills come and go as well."

Vala looks shocked.

"Babe? It's ok, right?" Daniel says, suddenly nervous that his wife is going to reject his daughter.

"Ok? It's the truth. She's our daughter. It's not like you can pick and choose. It's just… I feel like I might not be prepared enough. I should have researched more before we got her. I mean, when I was taking about the IEP with her new teacher today, I was clueless."

He puts a hand on her shoulder, "It's ok, we'll get it figured out."

Vala flips the light on.

"What are you doing?" Daniel asks with a laugh, because he is pretty sure that he already knows.

"I just have to read the IEP."

"Tomorrow," he says.

"No, I've got to…" she protests. Daniel sits up to kiss her. The IEP drops to the night table as the kiss deepens.

-Homework-

"I have homework," Dani announces as soon as they enter the house.

"You were at the Lopez's for three hours, how come you didn't do it there?" Daniel asks.

"Well, I'm pretty sure that I'm going to need help with it, and I really didn't want her to know how dumb I am."

"You're not dumb," he says, "I'm happy to help you."

Dani bashfully pulls out a worksheet. It contains about ten single-digit addition problems. "I swear I listened when she told me how to do it," Dani says.

"I know, honey. You don't have to be embarrassed when things are hard for you," he says opening up a drawer of his desk. He pulls out a jar or buttons, and dumps it on the table before her. "Now you can just count out your answers," he says.

"I used to have these memorized," Dani says.

"I know, is it frustrating for you sometimes?"

"All the time," Dani says with a sigh, "But I can't really complain about it."

"Why not?" Daniel asks, worried that she doesn't feel safe or secure in her new family.

"Because I'm alive. Because I got to have good years where I was smart before the accident, unlike a lot of the people I go to school with. I might get better, and not have to do baby work anymore."

Daniel is humbled by his daughter's answer, and kisses her on the forehead, "I'd say that you are already pretty dang smart. Besides, babies could totally not do this work."

-Here we go again-

"How come you aren't ready for the mission?" Daniel asks as Vala walks into the gateroom.

"Because I'm not going," Vala says.

"Something wrong?" he asks taking a couple of steps toward her.

She grabs him by the lapels, and he is about to scold her for a PDA after they agreed not to do one at work. It's not a kiss that she is aiming for though, she whispers in his ear, "I'm pregnant."

It is Daniel then who is guilty of the public display of affection.

-Big Sister-

Danielle takes a big, gooey bite of pizza.

"Honey, before we give you some big news, I want you to know that we really love you," Vala says.

Dani's mouth drops open "What's wrong?"

"Nothing, honey. Vala is pregnant," Daniel says quickly.

"Seriously?" Dani says bouncing, "I get to be a big sister?" She stands up, and flings her arms around both of them.

"I guess we didn't have to worry about how she took that," Daniel giggles to his wife.

-Plans-

Daniel is sitting alone in his study, looking grim. Vala slides onto his lap. He wraps his arms around her, accepting the comfort. She thinks how impossible this would have been before their time in the Ori galaxy.

"What's wrong?" Vala asks.

"I'm just a little sad to see all of this go," he says placing his forehead against hers.

"All of what?" then suddenly she realizes what he means, "Your library? Why do you want to get rid of the library?"

"The baby," he says putting a hand on her stomach.

"The baby is going to sleep in our room."

"Not forever," he points out.

"Well, you're simply not giving up your library. The kids can share a room."

"It's not ok to be a toddler in the room of a pre-teen," he says.

"Ok, then we'll move," she says.

He looks at her shocked at the idea, but gradually warming to it. "Are you sure you want to deal with that when you are having a baby?"

"I would do pretty much anything to finally get the idea through that thick skull of yours that you don't have to give up everything to be happy."

"I would be happy without my library," he whispers to her, "but I could never be happy without my family."

"Oh husband of mine, you are going to have both."

-Appointment-

"Can I speak with you privately?" the doctor asks after Dani's appointment.

"Sure," Vala says quietly. "Stay in the waiting room, love."

"I don't think that we are going to need to have bimonthly appointments any longer. I would like to see her twice a year for the time being. I think her skin has healed about as much as it is going to."

"No, it still hurts her, and she's scarred all over," Vala protests.

"That doesn't have anything to do with the healing process," the doctor points out, "She's as healed as she is going to be."

Vala looks down, "So you're sitting there telling me that my baby girl is going to be in pain for the rest of her life, and I'm just supposed to accept that? That's just the way that things are now? Well I'm sorry, but no. There has to be something that we can do."

"The pain is moderate. On the days were it is worst than average you can give her over the counter-pain meds…" the doctor says.

"There has to be an ointment or a stretch or a medicine…" Vala protests.

"Well, of course she can keep using her ointment, but it's not going to improve her a great deal any longer," the doctor says.

Vala nods walking out of the room. She has determined that she is going to find another way to save her daughter from this.

-Theft-

Vala used to be a professional thief. She's stolen things from places that were far more secure than the SGC. Yet… it's not quite the same when you are stealing from your friends.

"I've got some homework, can you help me?" Dani asks when she comes home.

"Of course, but first we're going to play a game," Vala says.

Dani doesn't miss the stress in her mother's voice, "Ok, what game?"

"It's… it's a game where you lay still, and close your eyes."

Dani raises her eyebrows in a way that makes Vala think she might just have been spending too much time with Teal'c.

"Ok, so there is a toy too," Vala says, pulling the hand device out of her pocket.

"What does it do?" Dani asks.

Vala blinks, "It's a toy. You have to imagine all the doing parts," she explains. "Just lay down on your back."

Dani glances at her suspiciously.

"I'm your mom, honey, you're required to listen to me even when I'm being weird."

"Ok, for the record, I can live with that a lot better than the weird game thing." Dani lays down on the couch.

Vala activates the hand device with a light coming out.

"What was that?" Dani asks, turning.

"Just sit still, love, and don't tell your Daddy," Vala says, giving up on the secrecy. Vala watches her daughter's scars disappear.

"It feels tingly…" Dani says.

"It's supposed to," Vala sooths.

"You don't have permission to use whatever military thingy this is, do you?" Dani asks.

"No, but the doctors gave up on you getting any better. I wouldn't ever give up on you," Vala says. The light turns off. "How do you feel?"

"Good," Dani says, standing up and stretching her arms together to move the skin on her back right where it used to hurt, "Really good! What was that?" she asks, turning.

"It's classified."

"You work with some crazy stuff,"

"We really do," Vala says, moving to hide the hand device inside of the piano.

"You stole that, didn't you?" she asks.

"Did I ever tell you what I did before I met your father?" Vala says, plopping next to her daughter.

"No, every time you try, he cuts you off, and starts telling a really loud fairy tale."

"Well, he's not here to cut me off this time. I was a thief."

Dani laughs.

Then she realizes that Vala is serious.

"Does Dad know?"

"Yeah, we met when I was stealing his ship."

"Dad had a ship?" Dani asks, obviously impressed.

"Well, it was more the Air Force's ship."

"So you were a pirate?" Dani says.

"Pretty much."


	12. Chapter 12

-The Dress-

"Oh!" Vala's eyes light up when her husband walks into the room with a garment bag.

"This is for our daughter," he tells her.

"You actually bought our daughter something?"

"Yeah, have you noticed she hasn't been wearing anything that would show off her scars lately? I didn't just get her the dress, either. I got her a doll," he says, pulling out one that has a burn mark on her face.

"Daniel, don't…" Vala says, trying to figure how to stop him.

"Dani! I got you a present!" he calls.

Dani runs into the room, and Daniel pulls the garment bag off of the dress. Dani blinks, "Thanks."

"Why don't you go try it on?" he prompts.

"I'm good," she says.

"Right," he says, pulling the doll out of the satchel.

Dani stars at it in horrified silence, "See, she was in a fire too," Daniel says, handing the doll to his daughter.

She throws it on the floor, and runs to her room to slam the door.

"That is not good. We need to get her to a child psychologist. She can't be ashamed of who she is," Daniel says.

"Oh, honey, this is my fault."

"Vala, you can't blame yourself for everything that does wrong in our child's life."

"Yeah, this one is all me. I stole the healing device, and I used it on her. She won't wear things that show off her scars because they aren't there anymore."

Daniel is silent for a long moment, making the sort of faces that he used to make when she flirted with him before they were together.

"How were you going to explain this?" he asks.

"I already cancelled appointments with her doctor. I told him that we went to someone else who still believed he could heal her."

"I meant, how were you planning on explaining this to me?" he asks with fiery eyes.

Vala looks down.

"You asked our daughter to lie. You were never going to let her wear another swimsuit, or sundress, or… what the hell was she going to wear on her wedding day? A burka?"

Vala starts toward the door.

He grabs her by the arm. "Where are you going?" he asks softly.

Vala turns to him crying, and he wraps her in a hug, "I'm sorry. I knew as soon as I was with you that I couldn't pull this crap anymore. No schemes, no lying, no stealing. I broke all of those rules. But you know what? I'm not sorry. She's my daughter. My baby, and when they hold me she was going to be in pain for the rest of her life, I wouldn't accept it. So I get that you're mad. I get that I have to go, but you make sure that nothing ever gets to hurt her, okay? Then I won't be sorry."

He tucks her head under his chin, "Vala, please don't ever leave me."

She pulls away to look at his face in shock.

He laughs at her, "Vala, you could never do something that would make me want you to leave me. My biggest fear is that you'll get scared and run."

She falls back into his chest.

"As much as I would love to hold you all night, I think our daughter is freaking out right now," he whispers.

"Right," she says, pulling away and starting toward the door of her daughter's bedroom. He grabs her hand as she goes, and she is grateful for the extra comfort.

Daniel knocks on his daughter's door.

"You can't come in," she says.

"Dani, your father knows that I healed you with the stolen military technology," Vala says.

Dani opens the door. She sniffles, revealing that she is obviously crying.

Daniel smiles at her, "I'm glad you're better. If Vala had told me, I probably would have helped. The only mistake she made was asking you to lie." He opens up his arms.

She falls into them, but whispers, "She stole it."

"I know, she does that sometimes," Daniel says with a tiny laugh.

"You just approve of her stealing?" Dani accuses.

"No, I don't approve it," Daniel says, looking over his daughter's head at her back, "But I accept it."

"What is the difference?" Dani asks.

"When you love someone, it really doesn't matter what they do. They're yours, and you love them."

Dani wraps herself more completely around Daniel, and he lifts her up, "That counts for you, too, little one," he says snuggling her into the crook of her neck. He holds her for a bit before he says, "Did your mom tell you that she used that device on me once?"

"No," Dani says pulling away.

"Of course, she caused the injury first," Daniel says.

Dani looks at Vala in horror.

"Hey, we'd only just met!" Vala says.

"She was torturing me for information," Daniel says, setting the girl down.

"I think I want more stories from your early days," Dani says.

Vala opens her mouth, but Daniel says, "No!"

-Beam me up, Thor-

Daniel and Danielle are sitting in the living room playing Jackals and Hounds. Suddenly, an Asgard beam whisks Daniel away.

For hours later, Vala comes home. "Hello!" she calls out, but no sound greets her. She checks the table for a note, and then she sees something move on the couch.

"Dani?" she asks concerned.

"He's gone," she whimpers.

"Gone where, honey?" Vala asks confused why her husband would leave their daughter alone. She rushes over to hug her obviously distressed daughter.

"The bright light took him," Dani says rocking a little.

"Oh, this is going to be ok. This is a military thing. Daniel is fine. I have to make a call, and we'll see him soon."

"No, the light took him, just like my parents," Dani sobs.

Vala picks up the girl, and carries her over to the phone, rocking her a little. She can deal with the big reveal later.

-Base-

"Daniel!" Dani says, flinging herself into her father's arms.

"You brought her on-base?" Daniel asks his wife critically.

"Well, she saw you go up in a beam of light and thought you were gone forever," Vala says.

"I'm here," Daniel says, patting her back.

"How did you get her on base?" he asks Vala critically.

"I asked, Daniel," Vala says, insulted.

"What is our cover story?" he asks with a few, 'It's okay's in his daughter's ear.

"We don't have one yet. I'm thinking we shouldn't use one," Vala says.

Daniel gives her an incredulous look.

"I'm serious, Daniel. Lot of weird things happen around us. We're not going to be able to hide it all from her forever. What is the use of hiding it from her at all?"

"Let's talk about it later," he whispers.

"Okay. You cleared to go home? What did he want?" Vala asks.

"We've got it taken care of," he assures her. "I heard you assigned Thor a bit of other work. Someone… ahhh… remembered the flashes?" he asks.

"They took my parents," Dani says.

"I know, love, but they aren't going to take us. Not forever," he assures her.

-Confessions-

"Are you sure about this? I mean, she's terrified of aliens, and we're probably going to freak her out forever," Daniel objects.

"I think we have to be honest," Vala says.

Daniel nods, and they enter their daughter's room.

"You awake?" he asks gently.

Dani sits up in her bed, and nods.

Daniel takes a seat cross legged on the floor in the middle of her room. Vala joins him, with her legs tucked to the side.

"We've decided to tell you the truth about what we do for a living. The whole truth. We know that that might freak you out. But we don't want to lie to you anymore," Daniel begins.

"You saw that alien beam pull Daniel up yesterday," Vala begins.

"Alien?" Dani asks in concern.

"Yeah, see, we're friends with aliens. We work with them. Thor needed to talk to me. We've had discussions about asking before he takes us out of the room, but he kind of does his own thing."

"A beam took my parents," she says.

"Yeah, see we're friends with a little guy named Thor. There is another guy named Loki, and he is not so great. He does experiments on humans. When you first told Vala about the beam of light, and your parents, we asked Thor. He looked at Loki's records, and I'm sorry, but they've been taking your parents for a long time. You too," he says looking down.

"Why would aliens be interested in me?" she asks in a voice that sounds like nothing less than an accusation.

"You've got this rare gene called the Ancient gene. Well, more than that. See, both of your parents had the gene, and you got it from both of them. Apparently, that's very rare. There is only one other case we know of, a guy called John Sheppard."

"So the aliens hurt my parents, because of me?" she asks.

"Not exactly, the alien never meant to hurt your parents. That was an accident. He took you all from the car that night, and when the car had no-one to drive it, you went out of control. The alien messed with time as well as memory when he took you, so you were only gone for a few seconds, but when he put you back, it was into a car falling off a cliff."

Dani stares at them for a long second, and Daniel finds himself wishing that he could figure out exactly what was going on in her head, "You're just as crazy as they were. I don't feel safe. Call someone to come and get me."

Daniel glances and Vala.

"Honey, we are your parents. We love you, and will always take care of you. You have nothing to worry about when you are with us," Vala says.

Dani shakes her head.

Daniel stands up with decision, "Ok, then, I'll call Sam to come pick you up."

"What?" Vala says incredulously.

"Well, Sam likes kids more than Cam, and Teal'c probably isn't the best to help her deal with this particular fear. Come on," he says gently, pulling on Vala's arm.

"She's our daughter, Daniel!" Vala exclaims.

"I know that, and right now she doesn't feel safe with us," Daniel says trying to calm her down.

"You can't just give her away! She's ours!" Vala says.

He turns Vala toward him, and touches her forehead to his, "Honey, this is not forever. But I will not let my kid be more terrified. I am going to do what is best for her, even if it kills me inside. Now, walk out of her room, and we'll call Sam."


	13. Chapter 13

-Thor-

"I'll be right over, Daniel," Sam says on the phone.

Suddenly a scream is heard from Dani's room. Whatever thoughts Daniel had of giving her space are suddenly gone, as he drops the phone and rushes into the room.

Dani is pressed against the wall, terrified, and a hologram of Thor is in the middle of the room. Daniel runs through the hologram in his rush to get to Dani, causing her even more fear.

"The aliens came!" Dani says.

"It's ok, he's a good guy," Daniel tells her.

"I was informed that my beaming Daniel away startled you. I came to alleviate your fears," Thor says.

"Well, you're kind of making them worst," Vala says, walking over to them, although they are careful to go around Thor.

"I was also informed of an inquiry that was made regarding her parents," Thor says, "Loki was involved."

"Yeah, the SGC told us," Daniel informs him.

"I came to assure the child that Loki has been adequately punished for the death of her parents," Loki says.

Dani stares at him, "You're real?"

"This body is a holograph," Thor says.

"Yes, but you have one that's real, up on a space ship or something," she says.

"Yes."

"And my parents didn't die chasing a UFO," Dani continues.

"No, they died during a failed abduction," Loki says.

"Daniel and Vala? They're safe?" she asks the alien who was the cause of her fears a while ago.

"They have saved the world many times. I am certain that they can adequately provide for security for a child," Thor replies.

"They saved the world?" Dani says.

"Yes, on several occasions…" Thor begins.

"I think that's enough with the fun stories," Daniel says cutting him off.

"He stops all the good stories," Dani complains.

"I could return later and finish the story if you do not scream," Thor says.

"I'm not sure that I can handle you without them," Dani admits.

"You are a very honest child. I am sorry about the death of your parents."

"Thank you," she says.

Thor beams away, and the room is silent.

"Are you okay?" Daniel asks after a long pause.

She leans close to him, and nods.

"Is it okay if we tell Sam that she doesn't have to come?" Vala asks.

"Yeah," Dani agrees.

"Do you want me to keep holding you for a bit?" Daniel asks.

"Maybe," Dani whispers.

"When I come back from calling Sam, I would love to let you in on this."

-Side Effects-

"Can I speak to you for a minute?" the teacher asks as Daniel picks her up from school.

"Sure," Vala says, following her into the small office the teacher uses.

"I want to talk to you about her math."

"Really? She's been doing so good. We check it every night, but she never gets any wrong."

"That's exactly what I wanted to talk to you about. I don't think she needs special education math anymore. She's made a marked improvement," the teacher says.

Vala grins.

"She will probably need a bit of support as she moves into the class," the teacher says.

"We're willing to give it."

"I also noticed that her motor skills are improving. She used to occasionally need help with things, and she hasn't asked for help in a couple of weeks. Has there been some sort of a change at home?"

The healing device, Vala thinks, but she isn't about to say that, "We switched doctors."

"Well, it's working. I'll get the paperwork out to you on this change."

-Overdone

"I think I might have overdone the healing device," Vala says.

"Ok, what does that mean?"

"Well, Dani's teacher mentioned that she's been doing really good."

"So you think you healed her traumatic brain injury?" Daniel asks.

"Well, it is an injury, right?" Vala prompts.

"How is that overdoing it? I mean, you were willing to heal her skin, but not her brain?" he asks with his eyebrows raised.

"The skin caused her pain," Vala protests.

"Yeah, her brain was causing her pain too. You know how frustrated she was."

"Well, it's all better now," Vala says cheerfully.

"I wish everything was that easy to make better."

-Labor-

It's like last time, but in slow motion. Adria was rushing to get into the world, and finish her cheat in the Ori galaxy; this baby, well, it felt like it was going to take its time.

"Daniel," she says, kissing his neck.

She isn't sure when they started reading each other's minds, but he doesn't have to ask what she means, "Do we have time to wait for Sam to come to watch Dani, or are we dropping her off?"

"I think we've got a lot of time," she says, sitting up.

He wraps himself around her before reaching for the phone.

-Too Long-

"The baby is never coming out!" Vala whines.

"Of course it is," Daniel assures her mopping her brow.

"No, Daniel, this one isn't. It's been days," she complains.

"Hours," he corrects.

"Way too long," she moans.

"Just give it one more big push," the doctor urges Vala.

Then, with a big scream, her squirming baby boy, Gabe, enters the world.

-Aliens-

Dani sits next to Vala in her parents' bed. Vala has the baby in her arms. He's at the awkward stage where he was old enough to be outside of the hospital, but not old enough yet where the protectiveness has lessened enough around the new baby for normal life to resume.

"Tell, me about my sister," Dani suddenly asks, looking at the little boy.

"Your sister?" Vala asks, surprised.

"The baby that got taken away? How old is she now?" Dani asks.

"Oh, about twenty-two," Vala says carelessly.

Dani gives her a critical look, "Sometimes when you tell a joke, I don't think that it is a lie," she says looking at her mother, "How could a baby grow up that fast?"

Vala looks at her daughter, "Oh love, sometimes I don't know whether to give you the truth or the lie."

"The truth," Dani says.

"Adria was a trick. I don't even know if she had my genes. She probably does, but I don't think she has any of Daniel's. They just made her inside my stomach. She grew in there, just like he did," she nods toward her son, "We loved her and waited for her and hoped for her, just like we did for him. Then when she came, she turned into an adult in a single day. She wasn't taken away. She walked away. She didn't want to be our daughter. She wanted to rule the whole galaxy."

Dani stares at her, and only repeats one word, "Galaxy."

Vala smiles, "Maybe the truth was a bit too much."

"Are you an alien?" Dani asks softly.

Vala examines her daughter's face very quietly.

"I can take the truth. It's not like I'm some little baby or whatever," Dani insists.

"I am an alien," she admits.

"But Daniel's really from Earth isn't he?"

"Yeah."

"So Gabe is half human?" Dani asks.

"I'm both alien and human," Vala says.

"Oh," Dani says, staring thoughtfully into space.

"Are you ok? You're not scared or anything, are you?" Vala, says hoping that her daughter isn't going to have the sort of reaction that she had when she first saw Thor.

"I guess it's not believing in aliens that is dangerous, or being an alien that's dangerous, it's the not knowing that puts you the most at risk."

Vala wraps her arm around her daughter. A few seconds after that Dani turns to Vala and says, "Now that I know the big secret you can tell me stories about your childhood, right?"

"I don't see why not," Vala says with a grin, "This one time on…"


	14. Chapter 14

-Date Night-

Vala fidgets in her chair, "Do you think the kids are ok?"

"Yes," Daniel says, not even looking up from his menu.

"But maybe we should just give them a call to make sure that everything is ok."

"Nope."

"Why not?" she asks.

"Because Sam is capable of saving the world, and she can certainly watch our kids for a couple of hours. Because we just left them twenty minutes ago. Because this is the first time that we've been on a date since we adopted Dani more than a year ago."

"Right, but maybe if I could just call them really quickly I would be able to calm down," Vala protests.

"I think it would only take a couple of minutes for you to start worrying again," he says.

Vala sighs, "I'm sorry."

He touches her hand, "It's ok. If you really want to leave, we can."

Vala sighs, "No, you're right. I mean… we've only had a couple of nice restaurant dates in our entire lives. I should just focus and enjoy this."

He smiles at her.

"But first, I'm going to go to the bathroom," she says standing up to leave.

-Abduction-

The waiter comes over to Daniel, and says, "Your wife has taken ill."

"What where is she?" Daniel asks concerned.

"She was escorted outside by another gentleman," the man replies.

-Breaking the News-

Daniel feels like the whole world is on his shoulder when he goes to Sam's house to pick up his children. He really doesn't feel like he could deal with anything else. He's already worked with the police, and Stargate Command, and he's worn out.

"You're way later than you said you were going to be," Dani complains the second that Daniel walks through the door.

"I know, get your coat," he says.

"Where is mom?" she asks. Dani calling them Mom and Dad is so new that it would have been thrilling. Now, he doesn't even care.

He doesn't answer her.

"Did you drop her off at home?" Dani asks confused, obediently shoving her arms into the coat.

Daniel picks up the baby carrier with his son inside without answering her.

"Daniel," Sam warns softly.

Daniel puts the baby carrier down, and kneels before her daughter. "Honey, your mother was kidnapped."

"What? I thought that only happened to kids?" she asks.

"No, it's just called that," he says.

"Is she going to be ok?" Dani asks.

"I guess we won't know that until we find her," he says with a sigh.

"Why aren't you looking?" Dani asks glaring at him.

"I did look, honey, and there are a lot of other people looking. I had to come get you guys," Daniel says trying to pull his daughter into a comforting hug.

"Leave me with Sam," she says pushing him away from her.

"How about if I go look?" Sam asks.

Dani nods. Then she looks at her father, "How did it happen?"

"She went to the bathroom, and someone just took her."

"Mom fights," Dani says.

Daniel takes a deep breath, he'd meant to leave this out, but it is clear that she won't let him skip over even the least pleasant of facts. "She was drugged."

"Is she coming back?" Dani asks.

"Of course," Daniel says, with a false confidence which doesn't fool his daughter.

-Nighttime-

Daniel doesn't go to sleep after he puts the kids to bed. He pretends to, he even tries to, but it doesn't happen. After a couple of hours there is a soft knock on the bathroom door.

"Come on in," he says.

"I'm too old to crawl into my parent's bed," she informs him.

"I could use a little company," he says patting the bed next to him.

She crawls in gratefully.

"Did aliens take her?" Dani asks.

"We're not sure, but maybe. She might also have gotten taken because she is an alien."

"Oh," Dani says pondering slowly. "So, even if you didn't work for the Stargate, they still would have taken her?"

"If I didn't work for the Stargate command I never would have met Vala. She and I would never have had a baby. Then she never would have convinced me to go to my old group home. You and I never would have met. I think everyone's lives would be worse if I didn't work for Stargate command."

"Of course, Vala wouldn't be kidnapped now," Dani says.

Daniel nods his head, even though he is pretty sure that Vala was in a lot more dangerous predicaments before he knew her.

-Dreams-

Val wakes up in the back of a diner with a dream still floating around her head. This isn't bad like so many of the other ones were. It's a sweat dream. It's a girl with sandy blond pig-tails, and a tiny baby.

"I think I'm a mother," she says to Sal when she comes into work that day.

"Do you remember the kid's name?" she asks.

"No… I think there were two of them though."

"You'll remember, you'll figure out a way to get back to them," she assures her.

-Face Off-

Daniel stands in front of Vala, and something clicks.

She can see him reading to the girl. Holding the baby boy in a rocking chair late at night. She'd always thought that there was nothing hotter than this man being completely absorbed in some books, and then she'd seen him completely absorbed in their son.

"Daniel," she says, sobbing.

He puts out her hands, and she falls into them.

"Are the kids ok?" she asks.

"Yeah," he says laughing in relief.

"I missed them… you all… so much. I just couldn't remember enough to get back to you. I don't even remember everything now."

"You remembered enough to stop running, and that's all that matters. I'll help you remember the rest when we get home."

-Another Date Night-

"Where exactly do you think you're going?" Daniel asks his wife when she comes out of their bedroom wearing high heels, and a very short dress.

"We never really got our date, so we still haven't had one since we became parents," she points out.

"I'm not exactly going to enjoy going out on the town a great deal when I know that you could be scooped up by some crazy alien criminal any second," he points out, "How about pizza in our own dinning room?"

"That's perfect, we can have a date night, and I can still know exactly what the kids are doing!" she exclaims in delight.

"I like cheese," Dani announces, sitting down at the table with her parents. Then she jumps up, "I'll go put on a date night dress."

Her parents laugh, but as she disappears, Vala says, "You know, someday she's going to want to go on a date with someone other than her parents."

"Don't rush it," Daniel whispers back.


	15. Chapter 15

-Surprise-

"So, SG-1 has some leave. Cam is going to go to his high school reunion," Daniel tells his wife.

"I know, I was at the same meeting as you were," she says, pulling herself into a sitting position on top of Daniel's high desk.

"Right, I just wanted to remind you of this fact so that when I gave you this, it would make more sense," he says, handing her an envelope.

"Presents! I love presents!" she exclaims, ripping it open.

"Airline tickets to England?" she asks, eyes sparkling.

"Yeah, I have a little research on some Ancient folklore that I wanted to do…"

"So you just want Dani and the baby and I to come along on some boring research trip…" Vala begins with an exaggerated roll of her eyes.

"Not just… I mean, if I was going alone I would probably make it all about the books. But with my family… I'd like to see some sights, maybe hit a museum or two…"

Vala crinkles up her nose at museum.

"Ok, you and Dani can go shopping while Gabe and I check out the museum."

-Museum-

"Vala, you don't have to stick around," Daniel assures her.

"Oh, trust me, we won't be staying all day. We're just going to walk around and see if there is anything interesting here before we take off," she says walking off with Dani in tow.

Daniel takes a book off the shelf, revealing a pretty woman in leather behind it. "Doing some research?" the woman asks. Vala stops walking away, and turns back. She pauses, motionless, a few feet away from her husband, curious how he's going to deal with the woman's obvious flirting.

He seems to be oblivious not only to his the fact that his wife is on high alert, but also to the fact that the woman in front of him is flirting at all. "Yes, hi. I'm looking for any Aramaic translations of pre-Judeo Pagan hymns, hopefully in lithograph form. Am I in the right section?" The woman stares at him a little blankly, causing him to realize, "You don't work here, do you?"

"It's ok, maybe if we look together," the woman says.

"No, it's okay. I'll ask at the enquiry desk. They probably have it locked up in the rare items archive. Thanks," he says, walking away.

Vala walks back up to her husband, and gives him a quick peck on the lips, "Were you this clueless before we got married?"

He gives her a confused look that lets her know that he has no idea what she is talking about.

"Well, then, it's a good thing I was impregnated by aliens, or else you probably never would have figured out that I had feelings for you."

"What?" Dani says in shock.

"It's a joke," Vala quickly covers.

"Oh, come on now, it's about time that the little lady hears the true story of how her parents got together. A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away…" Vala begins as she walks away from Daniel.

-Not Clueless-

"Hello again," the same woman that Daniel saw in the bookshelves earlier says as he is looking at a book at a desk, and holding his three-month old son.

"Hello," he says, barely glancing up from his book.

"I've been watching you, you really enjoy this kind of work, don't you?" she asks.

"You've been watching me? That's a little bit creepy," he says, holding his son a little bit closer to him, and moving his legs into a better 'escape' position underneath the table.

"Well, I guess it's kind of hard not to, you've very attractive," she says, flirting in a way that is even more obvious than his wife used to before they got married, if that's even possible.

"You know, as flattering as that is, I'm married with two kids," he says, giving a quick glance to the baby in his arms, "So I'm going to have to go ahead and say 'no'." He stands up during the speech, and is a couple of steps away before it is complete.

"Have it your way," she says, holding the ring out toward him and firing.

He ducks with the baby behind a bookcase before she has a chance to shoot fire out of the ring.

-Home Again-

"You can put Gabe down anytime," Vala tells her husband softly.

"Someone shot fire at our son today," he whispers.

"I'm well aware. Dani and I had to crawl through a vent in a dressing room to get away from someone too," she says.

"I know," he says.

"But they're safe now. All the bounty hunters are gone. We got the bad guys, and we're free and safe to live another day."

"They threatened our kids. I mean, we were just going about our daily business, and that put our kids in danger."

She rubs his back, not even sure what she could say to make the threat less real to him. "That's part of what it means to be on SG-1," she tells him.

"Maybe we shouldn't do it anymore, then?" he says softly.

Vala looks at her husband, shocked. She never expected to hear those words come out of his mouth. She knows what his job means to him. It's financial security, which he never felt anywhere but here before. It's the feeling of belonging, and acceptance. It's his home, in a way that is more true than even she and her children could provide for him. "You don't mean that."

"They are little kids, and they deserve not to be in danger. They deserve not to have their parents in constant danger, too," he says.

Then she realizes that this isn't even really about today. This is about his past. "Your parents died right in front of you," she says, hugging him.

"It just about happened to Gabe today. I mean… I might have even been holding him when he died! It was even in a museum, just like it was with my parents."

"He's not going to remember this," she points out.

"Doesn't mean that his life wasn't at risk," Daniel points out.

"Do you want to quit?" she asks, grabbing his hand.

"I really, really don't," he says, looking like an apology.

"You protected our son. You're like a superhero. They're safe with you," Vala says, leaning against her husband.

He enjoys her sweet lie.

-Daddy Dearest-

"So are we going to go over to your dad's apartment, or are we going to take the kids over there?" Daniel asks Vala.

"Ah, neither. There is no way that we are going to let him anywhere near our kids."

"He's their grandfather."

"He's going to break their hearts," she says.

Daniel looks at her carefully for a long second, "Did you have good times with him?"

A smile comes to her mouth against her will, "Well, I… actually looked forward to the times that he would 'grace' us with his presence. I was young, and he was my father. Sometimes he'd return late, in the middle of the night, and I would wake to find him asleep at the foot of my bed. I was so excited, I couldn't wait until morning, and I would prod him awake and make him tell me all about his 'great adventures'." Daniel gives her a big grin which is enough for her to continue, "He'd always have something for me too; a fancy ring, a pretty necklace, things that he'd bring back from his many travels. I treasured those keepsakes, memories of my father that I kept stored away under my bed… until I was old enough to see them for what they really were; worthless trinkets meant to curry my favor."

"He loved you," Daniel says softly.

"He left me, Daniel. At the end of this adventure, he's going to fly off into the horizon, and our kids are never going to see him again."

"But at least they will have a couple of good memories, and let's face it, there isn't a whole lot of family for them. Actually, no family besides the two of us."

"They have SG-1, and that's family," Vala protests.

He looks at her.

"Ok, but can you take them over there yourself? I really don't want to see him."

"Deal."

-Grandpa-

"Are we going over to Grandpa's again today?" Dani asks when she comes home from school, "I made him a picture."

Vala makes a face which clearly informs Daniel that he is going to have to field this question. After all, it was his idea to let her know her grandfather.

"Honey, your grandfather is gone."

"Gone where?" Dani asks, confused.

"We don't really know. Off the planet," Daniel says.

"Did he say goodbye?" Dani asks.

Daniel bends down onto his knee. He really doesn't believe in lying to his kids, but this is an exception, "Of course he did, honey. He was really sad that he had to leave you, because he loves you so much."

"Will he come back?" Dani asks.

"He will if he can," Daniel says, giving his daughter a kiss.


End file.
